Topband: What antenna would you build?

[Dino Darling]

If you may and you are willing to indulge me; if you were about to buy 5-acres with no neighbors or restrictions and wanted to erect a serious 160M antenna system, what would you build and why? We can pass on the Radio Arcala discussion; nobody's that cool.

A loaded 4-square? 1/4 wave stick (or longer)? Phased dipoles? (fill in the blank)?

I've seen a 200' tower with three phased dipoles tilted on end. The end of one side of the dipole was anchored and insulated at the top of the tower and came down like guy cables. About half way down was the feedpoint, were an isolated anchor cable continued down the same path to ground (like a guy cable). However, the second half of the dipole was pulled back to the base of the tower, from the center feedpoint insulator. It looked like an arrowboard chevron or a regular dipole that was turned 90 degrees on its side. The coax was horizontal back to the tower. There were three of these spaced 120 degrees apart and fed with a phasing network to steer it. I understand it works great.

So what would you build?

Dino - KX6D