[TowerTalk] Update: 80 Meter Vertical Loop

[K0PYK]

Tower Talk'ers,
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!! I wanted to update
everyone on my loop progress. When I got home that
weekend of discussion. The loop was laying on the
ground. So I coiled it up till I had time to deal with
putting it back up. Also, I was getting a permit from
the city for a tower. Another story...no problem
getting the permit...just took time agreeing on
location. I decided to recut the loop to 1005/3.55 MHz
less 3% correction for insulated wire>>>which is 275
feet. I reconfigured it for a rectangle loop to be fed
at the bottom of the loop which turned out to be
behind a tree. I am trying to keep it stealthy. OK, I
realize 275 feet of wire is not going to be stealthy.
I am using 12 ga, uf, white in color, irrigation wire.
I painted it with grey primer to cut down the
reflection in the sunlight. Next time I will get a
roll of grey colored wire. I hauled it back up into
the trees and hooked a 4:1 balun at the feedpoint with
rg8 coax. In preliminary testing it is 1.2:1 on design
frequency and rizes to 3:1 at 3.9 MHz. So, seems to
behave correctly now. Loading it on 7.1 and 14.2
yields similiar results. I can use it on 14.070 MHz
psk w/o the tuner. The nice thing so far has been that
the S meter reading on the 80 meter loop are 1-2 s
units better than the 40 meter vertical loop. The 40
meter vertical loop is not as high. I will be re-doing
that as time permits. 
As a side note, I dug the hole Tuesday afternoon for
the tower and poured the concrete on Wed afternoon.
Snowed on Thursday and Friday. I have an 8 foot tower
now. Will have to pick the nice days and finish
putting it up. 
Tom, K0PYK


		
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