[TowerTalk] RE: Gap titan response

[Rob Atkinson, K5UJ]

That's probably right.  I can't really comment much about 75 m. performance 
because I used it vy little there.  I recall making contacts with it though, 
and even using it late at night in a NAQP SSB contest but I was running an 
amp and if you give a door spring enough power you will make QSOs.   I 
eventually put up the 1 w.l. horiz. loop i use on the low bands and once i 
got that up, I abandoned the gap except on 20 and above where I use it or 
the loop depending on the circumstances.   The loop beat the titan by 25 db 
on 40 at a friend's qth about 200 miles away but that may have partly been 
due to the high angle on the loop (a cloud burner antenna) compared to the 
vertical.

BTW, I found it necessary to put a line isolator (1:1 unun aka common mode 
filter) in the feed near the titan as there was rf coming back on the 
external shield.   It was also necessary to stand off the feed from the 
mast.  I also augmented mine with a screen of 20' wires on the lawn under 
it.

If I had it to do over again right now, I'd get one of those SteppIR 6 to 40 
m. verticals, and throw up some kind of wires for wherever you want to 
operate under 7 mhz and call it quits.  The SteppIR vert. wasn't on the 
market when I got the Titan.

Rob/K5UJ



From: Steve Katz <stevek at jmr.com>
To: "'Rob Atkinson, K5UJ'" <k5uj at hotmail.com>, towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: Gap titan response
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 09:39:44 -0800




 > I found it a fussy antenna to put together and get resonant.  I had to do
 > some fiddling with mine.  You will probably need one of those swr
 > analyzers
 > like the mfj 259.   It is reasonably flat across 20 and above.  I get
 > around
 > 200 khz of 40 and 150 khz of 75.
 >
 >
 > //I think if the Titan really exhibits bandwidth of 150 kHz on 75m, it
 > must work similar to a dummy load.  That's more bandwidth than a
 > full-sized antenna has on 3.5 MHz.  My Hustler 6BTV, which is 26' tall
 > with top-loading, provides about 30-40 kHz bandwidth on 75 or 80m, above
 > and below those points VSWR climbs to >5:1 quite rapidly, and the 
mismatch
 > becomes so bad 150 kHz away that it's not very useful even for receiving.
 > But, where it is resonant, it works about the same as a dipole up 50'
 > above ground (which I also have, for comparison). -WB2WIK/6
 >
 >
 >

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