[TowerTalk] 20M Gap Titan very Early results

[Dick Green]

Paul,

It's been almost six years since I've used my GAP Titan. It's still erected
in the woods as an emergency backup antenna, but now that I have at least
two other superior antennas on each band from 80-15, I doubt I'll ever use
it. My recollection is that the GAP Titan is a pretty good antenna on 40, 20
and 15. I worked lots of DX and a fair number of contest stations on those
bands for over two years. As I said, it's a dummy load on 80m and I've never
found a ground-mounted vertical that could do anything on 10m (but you won't
have to worry about that for very long, since 10m will be leaving us soon!)
No problem pumping 1500w into the bands above 80m. I would have to say that
performance on 20m was the best of the lot, followed closely by 15.

40m was pretty good for a multiband vertical with no radials. I later built
a single full-size 40m monopole with 60 radials (the first element of my
4-square), and was able to compare it side-by-side with the GAP. Hard to
remember now, but I think the monopole was 10-20dB better. I periodically
had to play around with the GAP counterpoise to get proper matching on 40m.
As I recall, snow would sometimes knock the 40m tuning around. Another
problem was that bugs (spiders, I think) would build nests inside the
insulators at the end of the crossed tubes that support the counterpoise
wires. When the nests got wet, a path was created between the wire and
tubing. The resulting arc would leave a carbon trail in the plastic
insulator that was impossible to remove -- replacement was the only fix. If
the design still uses those little sections of PVC for insulators, some
non-conductive plastic mesh around each one might be good insurance.

73, Dick WC1M

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dinsterdog at aol.com [mailto:Dinsterdog at aol.com] 
> Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2003 9:36 AM
> To: towertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 20M Gap Titan very Early results
> 
> 
> Well,
> 
> It's is up in the air, on a 12 foot mast sunk 4 feet in  
> concrete sticking 
> above ground 8 feet- 
> 
> On 20M....Testing it compared to a Hustler 6BTV and Cushcraft 
> MA5V as a 
> reference.  Results vary as many predicted.  On receive, by 
> as much as 
> nothing or up to 2 S-units, typically in favor of the MA5V 
> which averaged at 
> least a S unit louder with less noise in the back ground. A 
> nice combo- 
> 
> All seem to do pretty well over-all in transmit, but 
> something is different 
> between them for at times, they would jockey around for the 
> best rx and/or tx 
> signal reports.  Of note, the Hustler 6BTV was way down 
> compared to either of 
> them by at least 2 S units on average but had it's moments of 
> equality.  
> (hint, for 20M, take the MA5V if you don't run an amp....)
> 
> Conclusion, thus far, my laid back multiband vertical test 
> has been fun but 
> should not be taken too seriously. For 20M, the MA5V over-all 
> did better, but 
> can't handle more than  250 watts and has about 70KHz of 
> bandwidth.  It is 
> also made of poor cheesy craftsmanship easy to fix if you 
> have some antenna 
> experience.  Is it high Q or what?
> 
> Personally,  I'll take the Titan for 20M....I like the use of 
> the entire band 
> without a tuner and I like using an amp when needed.  Both 
> the MA5V (70KHz 
> 2:1 BW)and 6BTV (200KHz 2:1 BW)  need a tuner to cover the 
> entire band.  But 
> the neighbors hate it- it looks like a Mar's Lander device 
> but I just love 
> the look myself- 
> 
> As I make progress, I'llreport more- these were first 
> night/day results and 
> thus far, the Gap is doing well- Not a barn burner, but well 
> and has it's 
> advantages.   I think the Eham reviews are a bit high but 
> compared to nothing 
> else sitting in the yard for comparisions, I can see how many 
> hams would give 
> this thing a five.  I'm just at 4 for now- You just can't let 
> a little MA5V 
> smoke you on RX man!  All for grins eh?!
> 
> 73  Paul  N0AH- 
>