[TowerTalk] Carolina Windom

[rb]

A ham has asked me to comment on the Radio Works Carolina Windom(cw).  I
have one of these, and have used it for a couple of years, interchanged with
my G5RV and ladderline fed dipole.

Before I get into the CW, I have an afterthought about the topic of whether
the feedline on the G5RV radiates or not.  There is a way to rig a G5RV for
use on 160m.  When doing this (and it works fairly well), it can legimately
be argued that the antenna is no longer a G5RV.  There are two reasons for
this.  One is that the G5RV was made to cover 80-10m.  Also, when rigged for
160m use, the G5RV becomes a vertical top loaded Marconi thing worked
against ground and a groundplane.

Anyway, on to the CW.  There is a 136' and a 265' one.  I have the 136'
version.  There is also a variant of this which simply tells you to bend the
ends down if you don't the clear span space for the full 136'.  The straight
136' one is called the 160 Beam, and the "bent" version is the 160m Beam
Special.

The CW apparently puts out a signal comparable to my G5RV on 80-10 (I can't
tell any difference on xmit or rcv).  It is truly bandswitching, in that you
can switch and tune, all the way from 10-160m.  On 160m, Radio Works claims
more signal is vertically radiated than goes out horizontally, which is
good.  160m use is downrated to somewhere in the vicinity of 500 watts,
while the rating for the other bands is legal limit.

The CW has a balun at the feedpoint on the horizontal section, and a choke
balun at the bottom of a 22' piece of coax which drops down from the top
feedpoint.  Various lengths of coax can be run from the choke balun to the
shack.

On 160m, the 22' downlead becomes a vertical radiator, with top loading.
Remember, the claim is that more of the radiation is in the vertical than
horizontal.

While it's good that we have some vertical radiation to work further out
with, there is a downside to getting that vertical radiation.  The downlead
must be hung as close to 90 degrees from the horizontal as possible, and
must be in the clear physically.  This can become a placement problem for
guys who are in certain lot configurations where there isn't any flexibility
as to being able to shift placement of a downlead around to get optimal
clearance.  Now, because the CW is an off-center fed antenna, there are two
possible ways to suspend it to shift the downlead drop, in a given
situation, so that's to the good.

Bear in mind that not having the perfect downlead drop in the clear and
straight down only impairs ops on 160m.  For the rest of the freight, the CW
uses the horizontal wire.  Also, in a less than perfect down drop situation,
it still may give useful performance.  Depends on circumstances.

I think just about any tuner will load the CW, no problem.  I have used an
MN-2000, MFJ-949, and Dentron RT-3000 on mine.  Some bands will load out OK
without a tuner (same applies to G5RV, too) .  Also, you don't need any
radials to get on 160m with the CW.

73 de Ron, K5BDJ


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