Topband: What antenna would you build?

[Jeff Blaine]

The casual antenna nut considering a parasitic vertical array will need 
to pay very close attention to the comment on having a VERY SERIOUS 
ground radial system on all elements.

73/jeff/ac0c
alpha-charlie-zero-charlie
www.ac0c.com


On 3/24/22 11:55 AM, Stan Stockton wrote:
> Different people have differing views on the definition of a serious antenna.
>
> An 8 circle with 8 directions of BSEF verticals would definitely be serious.
>
> If you wanted one tower and didn’t want to do the work to install a minimum of 100 radials or more I would consider one tall tower with elevated radials.  The best antenna I ever had in Arkansas was 192 feet of 25G which I put up in 1980.  This tower was shunt fed with the feed point at 60 feet and had 9 radials (3 per leg) taking up several acres  with the ends pretty high.
>
> Nobody had a four square back then so competition was not as great, but it was a great performer.  I think it was better than most serious antennas at the time which would be quarter wave verticals with extensive, on ground, radial systems.
>
> That antenna for transmit and a half dozen thousand foot Beverages would be a serious 160m setup even today.
>
> 73… Stan, K5GO
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Mar 24, 2022, at 10:34 AM, w5zn at w5zn.org wrote:
>>
>> 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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