Topband: What antenna would you build?

[w5zn at w5zn.org]

Hi Dino,

I started with a single 1/4 wave vertical as Tree notes and it worked 
extremely well for years, however after a period of time I had a desire 
to upgrade the single vertical to a system that offered some gain on TX. 
I came across the array that Tim, K3LR, mentioned in "Low Band DX'ing" 
that describes his systems and discovered I could build this array 
around the existing 1/4 wave vertical and achieve 4-square performance 
in a smaller footprint area. I have now used the array for four years 
and the performance has been outstanding. After reading the info 
regarding this array in Low Band DX'ing I documented some additional 
details of my experience that were presented at the Dayton Antenna Forum 
and also published in the National Contest Journal. Copies of those 
documents can be found here:

https://www.kkn.net/dayton2018/2018_Dayton_Antenna_Forum-160_meter_TX_Array.pdf

https://ncjweb.com/features/sepoct18feat.pdf

As Tree notes, the very first step is to determine exactly what your 
objective is. The five element parasitic array has met my objectives for 
both contest and DX activities.

73 Joel W5ZN


On 2022-03-23 22:38, Dino Darling wrote:
> 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
> _________________
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