[TowerTalk] What about hams with small lots???

[Pete Smith]

For whatever it's worth, these are the antennas I used for 20 years for HF
conesting from a 20-foot-wide townhouse lot, in an area where antennas were
totally forbidden (but they have to catch you first).  

I was fortunate to have a small stand of woods just behind my back yard.
For a number of years I ran several inverted vees off a single feedpoint at
about 30 feet (9m) in the air on a tree limb, fed with coaxial cable.  10
meter, 20 meter and 40 meter dipole elements were fanned out around 30
degrees from each other.  The 40m elements worked adequately on 15, and I
added W9INN coils to each end to give me 80m capability as well.

Late in our time there, I wanted to finish up 5BDXCC and felt I needed a
better low-band antenna.  With a bow and arrow and a lot of retries I
managed to erect a 280-foot (84m) vertical loop.  It was roughly
rectangular in shape, with the top at about 50 feet (15m) in the air,
literally lying in branches at the top of the stand of trees.  I fed it at
a bottom corner with 450-ohm open wire line, fed in turn by a 4:1 balun
just outside the basement window.  To my pleased surprise, the internal
tuner in my TS-930 would match it on all 5 bands, plus 12 and 17 meters.
Running low power, I finished the 80m part of 5BDXCC in just a few months. 

The moral, I think, is that simple wire antennas, preferably multi-band,
can give you a lot of pleasure on the air from a minimum lot.

73, Pete N4ZR






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