[TowerTalk] Dipole Longer or higher?

Derek Cohn/WB0TUA vibroplex at mindspring.com
Tue Feb 15 00:30:35 EST 2005


Dear Friends,

A few months ago, I asked for advice getting a 40' high center support installed for my random length dipole fed with 450 ohm balanced line and tuned with a homebrew link-coupled tuner.  Thanks to your guys advice, I now have a support up and am ready to move my dipole from its' anemic 18' center support to the 40' one.  The current anchor points of the dipole are on 18' supports so it's a pretty horizontal antenna at the moment.  The anchor points of the dipole are probably going to remain at 18' for the forseable future.   Since the center support will be at 40', the antenna will become an inverted vee.  This gives me a choice.  As I raise the dipole up another 22 feet in the air, I can either add more wire to the antenna or not.  If I do not add wire, the ends of the antenna will be higher.  The antenna is currently about 100' long.

Would I be better off adding wire to the antenna or having the ends higher in the air.  I primarily operate 80, 40, 30, and 20 CW.  Any advice?
 
Thanks to all who helped me with my advice on my center support.  I'll post photos as soon as I can get them.

73,

Derek Cohn
Morse Telegraph Club - Alton Chapter
Office UD, Sine DJ
Amateur Radio Station - WB0TUA
1969 Brunswick M274A5 Mechanical Mule


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