Topband: plan a change in my 80 meter 4-square

[Terry Burge]

Hello guys and gals,

This last winter season I did not get much out of my 80 meter 4-square.
I've tuned it about as well as I can. It is using 1/2 WL slopers, a Comtek
4-square controller and is off my  tower about 114' level. My ground is
sloping down from East to West and South with a drop of perhaps 10-15'. Not
much that is really level here.

The plan I am trying to develop is to use elevated 3" irrigation tubing 40'
long with some 2" added to get up (toward) the 63-64' height needed.
Probably end up about 50-55' of tubing. Maybe some kind of capacitance hat
if I can configure one, then a short 3" diameter coil of copper tubing or
aluminum heavy wire. That should make it easy to bring it into resonance to
get the 'dump' power tuned in. Getting the dump power down between all four
verticals/slopers is always a big, slow challenge.

(Before someone says model it I don't have Necwire2 any more and tried but
can't figure out some of the others)

Figure on using 2" X 4" X 12' boards with a swinging door type of hing to
raise the vertical and probably a dacron rope pull line. May also
require an 'X" or cross part way up the vertical with dacron guy wires
attached up high, thru the X and attached down low on the vertical to give
it  the stiffness it requires to raise and lower the vertical. Probably
also 3-4 dacron guy lines for each vertical.

The real question is can I offset it from my big tower in the center?
Because of the trees on the SW and especially the NW I want to get the
verticals out in the open and away from the tower guy wires and trees as I
can. One challenge will be getting thru the gravel on the SW vertical side
since it was used as a driveway at one time. Try using the pressure washer
on that Gravel the way someone suggested. The offset from the big tower
will likely be diagonally 10' or so. With the vertical bases about 8' above
the ground I should not have any problem with the Comtek switchbox once I
get that off the tower since the 75 ohm coax feeders have got the length to
spare.

Radials will be done as best I can since I'm near the property line with my
friendly neighbor to the east and north. Maybe check out Guy's K2AV
suggestions of FCP style or ?

Any comments?

Terry
KI7M