[TowerTalk] 80 meter vertical

[Wally Klinger]

Good Afternoon,

I am in the process of reworking my 80 meter ground mounted vertical.  It 
started out life as an HF2V.  Last year I put a capacity hat on it and saw 
some improvement.  This fall, I decided to rebuild it.  I made it into a 33 
foot vertical, sans the coils and cap that are normally 3 or 4 feet above 
the base.  I took a 33 foot piece of wire and attached it to the top of the 
vertical.  I ran the wire up to the top of my 70 foot tower on a 35-40 
degree angle about 50 feet east of the vertical.  There is an insulator and 
about 40 feet of rope separating the tip of this "bent vertical" from the 
top of the tower.  The vertical is sitting on 55-60 radials from 33 to 135 
feet in length tacked below my sod.

The antenna is not resonent as I hoped. I get an SWR of 1.1 at 3.7 Mhz, but 
with my tuner I can flatten it out where I want it.  I can not get it to 
load on 160 at all even with the tuner...... I get down to 8.0 to 1 on the 
259 at the lowest point on 160.

Has anyone ever done something like this before?   A "bent" 66 foot 
vertical?  Should it exhibit a low angle of radiation, or did I build a 
cloudwarmer?  Any ideas on improving it?  Theoretically, will it be 
directional or lobed in a particular direction?  Any ideas on capacitive or 
inductive loading at the base to gain a little 160 use? I simply strapped 
over the fiberglass insulator that formerly separated the coil.  Heck, I can 
even come up with a vacuum variable at this point.... What do I gain?

Yup, it is still noisy, but I will take Phil's advice and mitigate this with 
a K9AY loop that I am working on in the garage.  That is tomorrow's 
project..... Ran outta daylight :)

Any ideas you guys might have would be appreciated.

73--Wally Klinger W9BEA

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