[TowerTalk] Physically Low and Efficiency High--Low Frequency Antennas

[K7GCO@aol.com]

   <"There are also tricks I've used to make horizontal antennas closer to 
the ground on 160-40M compete with the higher ones.  It's rare fun beating 
the higher antennas."  K7GCO>
    redpines@cybrzn.com writes: Dear Ken: I would love to hear about these!  
I have 2-70' towers about 120' apart and they need some wires to be attached 
to them!  73 Tom K0SN    
     Here's Part 2 and there have been a lot of requests and even phone calls 
with confirmations and more ideas.  K7GCO

        Part 2--Physically Low and Efficiency High Antennas for the LF’s.
     There is a great 160M antenna out there connected to a great ground 
system unused.  I understand that some have backed up to a water tower and 
used a vice grip and Gamma/Omega Match it to my mobile rig—a 160M DXer’s 
Broadbanded Dream.  There is one 1 mile from where I will live in SD out in 
the country (with buried power lines) that will get the "K7GCO Gamma Match 
Treatment"—on Field Day.  Don't do it if there are any other antennas on it.  
I’ve even thought of a way to have a "K7GCO Beverage/Gamma Match"--1 mile 
long terminated with a great "160M Broadbanded Vertical".  There a lot of 
"Top Loaded Wind Mills" out there too.  Would you believe if it's windy, the 
rotating top loading will create "Circular Polarization."  No one has ever 
terminated a 1 mile Beverage—with a 600 ohm gamma matched water tower and a 
great ground system under it.  I’ll have to put it in Eznec!  Perhaps it 
could be tuned to "Internal Water Resonance" by adjusting a few valves?  Have 
you ever heard of "wet reactance"?  Some water users may have hot water 
coming from the cold tap.  Water Towers out in the country (anywhere) are 
just sitting there waiting to be used.  It will help purify the water with a 
little "RF Lightning Bite" to it also—like RF Ginger Ale.  Certain "Bathroom 
RF Bites" could be interesting and dramatic with possible ceiling and head 
damage.  Can you imagine what the cattle drinking this water would do on a 
SSB peak and the phone calls—about stampedes?  Talk about "RF Fire Water.  I 
wonder if that can be bottled?  "That’s an absolutely true possibility—I just 
made it up."

I have connected to unused Telephone Wires, unused Electric Fence Wires and 
Railroad Tracks--it's a "Balanced Beverage".  It can be terminated at any 
length.  The SWR tends to change at certain times of the day.  I added 
concealed insulators to a neighbors fence top wires for a beverage type 
antenna.  I ran a green insulated wire over to it and he never saw it.  Using 
the Electric Fence wire had some unusual results on the cattle and even the 
farmer.  He though he shut it off.  An insulated wire Beverage can just be 
laid on the ground all the way.  It works best on poor ground.  In the winter 
lay insulated wire on the ice of a lake for a "Cold Signal".  It's an "Under 
Water Antenna" that no one can see in the spring.  It can be suspended 5' 
below the water.  "RF Mist Patterns" of the antenna field have been know to 
form.  Would you believe boats that sail into it have been know to disappear 
like the Bermuda Triangle.  Fish have been known to bite like Piranhas at the 
CW rate.  SSB has been known to create "SSB Attack Turtles"--"Single Side 
Biters."   RF does strange things.

I used my water system pipes 30 years ago.  I connected a wire from my water 
pipes in the shack to the ground connection on an L network.  I ran a 2nd 
wire on the ground to the water pipe outside the house of the neighbor—with a 
green insulated wire.  I had a low DC resistance water pipe loop about 250’ 
long with about 150’ underground in the middle.  This 2nd wire was connected 
to the main input of the L network.  I matched it to 50 ohms.  I was 
essentially feeding the ends of a 160M dipole bent over heavily grounded in 
the middle connected to the water system.  I cannot tell you what happened.  
I didn’t think they were home.
     A smaller version of that everyone can do without head and ceiling 
damage to the neighbors is this.  Run a wire from the rig about 10’ off the 
ground to a good ground about 25’ away like the buried oil tank.  Metal 
Ceptic tanks could be "Real Stinkers".   Add in series a BC 3 gang variable 
(there should be a flea market run on these after this Post.--I got most of 
them and RF ammeters) and connect the wire directly to the center of coax 
jack in the transceiver—not the chassis.  I adjusted the BC variable and got 
a 1.2:1 SWR on 160M--sometimes you luck out.  It’s a single wire .05 WL 
connection to the ground which the variable capacitor tuned out the 
inductance of the short wire connection.  It’s kind of a "Gamma Matched 
Ground."  On a very simple and cheap antenna at 7PM at night in the summer in 
Seattle that took 5 minutes to make, I got a S8 report in Frisco running 
100W.  Normally it takes a 4 Square to do this.  I told him I was working him 
"Oiled Ground Wave."  It was a very quite antenna on receive also.  So the 
basic design is to run a wire off the ground a ways to a very good available 
(oiled) ground at different distances.  If the BC variable doesn’t give a low 
SWR, add an inductor or use an L-Network.  This is an antenna that the 
patterns in Eznec won’t properly explain.  Ted Hart W5QJR has one he 
described in AntenneX Mag and is about 40’ high at the peak on that AntenneX 
Web Site that can’t be explained by the patterns either.  It works.

Now for the "K7GCO Clincher".  Find or create a very Lo-R ground about 120’ 
away.  On one installation I connected to the ground wire on a 110 VAC power 
pole going to the neutral wire about 20’ high in my back yard.  I adjusted 
the wire length for 1:1 SWR at 3.8 MHz.  The ½ WL of wire repeated the ground 
resistance at the other end.  The Radiation Resistance Rr and the DC 
Resistance Rdc I measured were you guessed it--were both "50 ohms".  It was a 
very efficient radiator.  This also suggests there are a lot of LF 
signals—under ground not properly tapped into.  It’s almost like laying a 
dummy load on the ground some distance away and grounding the case to ground 
with "0" ohms.  Note! With this new style of antenna you use a DC ohm meter 
to check out the ground resistance first.  The ½ WL long wire about 10-20’ 
off the ground acts like an open wire transmission line (that radiates) and 
repeats the summation of the DC resistance of the ground and path.  I had a 
radial ground system in the back yard for my verticals.  One end of it was 
near the pole ground and the other side was grounded near the shack and into 
the shack for the DC resistance measurement.  Talk about simplicity on 
75M—one wire direct connection to the rig and no matching of any kind.  This 
is the new "K7GCO Hush Hush 50 Ohm (RF&DC) Grounded Antenna"--it’s very very 
quiet  On the BC Band and 160M, the Z is high at the end of the now 1/4 WL 
feed line and requires an L network to match.  On 40M it is a Lo-Z again (1 
WL feed line wire) for direct feed.  Trim the wire or make it a bit longer 
and use the series BC variable.  If the ground resistance is less than 50 
ohms with multiples of a ½ WL wire, lengthen the wire and tune with the 
variable BC capacitor.  Oil tanks are being taken out of the ground as 
leakers and maybe yours is due.  Back in SD I hooked to the unused big gas 
tank of the gas station next to where I lived.  I was on the cutting edges of 
Grounds 50 years ago.  I wonder what would have happened if full of gas and a 
RF arc got inside?  Hmmm?  It’s worth a try out in the boon docks somewhere!  
That could put out a "Booming Signal."  If you call them on that--they stay 
called.  Leave yours in and use it as a great ground.  Or obtain one and bury 
one about 115’ away so that the wire will still resonate at 3.9 MHz.  If you 
make it longer in multiples, it will be directive and Lo-Z.  This is a 
Beverage Type Antenna you can pour the power to it transmitting and perhaps 
this aspect of the Beverage has not been properly explored.  Beverage 
antennas haven’t been designed for transmitting and the "K7GCO Grounded 
Beverage"—IS.  You don’t have to worry about terminating resistors.  The 
length is critical and controls Z back at the feedpoint.  An L-Network will 
match just about any Z.  A whole series of "K7GCO Grounded Beverage Type 
Antennas" can be made varying in length and height but always heavily ground 
at the other end with some rods, an oil tank, copper sheet or a conventional 
radial system and/or a single wire on the ground back to the shack for 
whatever affect it can have in tuning or losses.  It’s a long flat rectangle 
loop.  I’m going to check that out in Eznec.

     Another trick used by RCA years ago to terminate Vee Beams to get around 
a patent was this.  Run a wire down from the Vee Beam end and lay it on the 
ground for a couple hundred feet.  Or if you have a high single support, run 
Vee Beam wires their full length sloping to the ground where the end 
terminates in an insulator physically and then lays on the ground for a 
distance that creates the desired match to 600 ohm open wire line at the feed 
point.  Even a ground return wire can be utilized here also.  I will develop 
this and the patterns in Eznec.  (I’ll never get moved)
     The huge surface area of an oil tank will make a great ground near the 
shack also.  Or bury a copper sheet 3’X6’ long—36 sq-ft surface area using 
both sides.  It can be purchased.  It beats the hell out of a 6’ copper rod 
with about 1.2 sq ft.  Ground rods are very deficient grounds.  They are just 
easy to install.  In the 30’s, we used to bury the big copper tubs that 
clothes were boiled in if they had a leak for a great ground—about 10 or more 
sq ft.  We did everything much better in the 30’s with better grounds and 
more efficient feed lines.  So much for the myth of hi-tech progress.  The 
copper tubs were recommended in the Antenna Handbooks of the day.

Now if you already haven’t seen the light, the power line, a telephone 
connection on it’s base or about 25’ of wire connected to a good ground at 
the other end, it makes a hell of an antenna on the low frequencies even 
better than the 50-75’ of antenna wire that was often suggested in the radio 
instruction sheets with SW Radios years ago.  They would show this wire 
connected to the "A" terminal and a wire to the "G" terminal going out to a 
ground rod.  I have news for you.  We have been connecting the ground rod 
wire to the wrong terminal all these years.  For below 4 MHz, use the "Hot 
Signal Ground Wire" for a low noise receiving antenna.  These are very 
effective LOW PHYSICALLY and LOW FREQUENCY ANTENNAS and are NOISE QUIET and 
SIGNAL LOUD.

    In AntenneX on the Web, there has been a series of articles on the CFA 
Antenna for the BC Band.  It is about 1/10 the height of the full size 1/4 WL 
vertical and beats it.  Yes I said "1/10 the height."  There are articles 
there now on making it for 160-40M.  You have to do your antenna homework to 
keep up with all these cheap skate ways to beat the big boys with money.  
It's rare fun that I particularly enjoy since I'm retired, without extra 
money for big expensive antennas and all my other hobbies to the degree I was 
used to for 60 years.  Get on the AntenneX Web Sight, get and stay up to 
date.  Meanwhile--back to my packing and the AntenneX Web Sight March Issue.  
There is great Antenna stuff there.  K7GCO  Ken Glanzer


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