[TowerTalk] Its summer and antennas are on my mind

[Bill Parry]

I have been thinking for a while about a second tower. I currently have 120
foot tower with a C3E and XM240 stacked on top. For 80 I have a full sized
sloper and for 160 I have an inverted vee with the top about 110 feet.

I want to be able to get on the WARC bands (Challenge award) plus I would
like to have a second antennas if we do multi-single contest operation. I
already have the easy stuff, amps and radios - so antennas, it is. I have
thought of a 100 foot tower of either Rohn 45 or 55. I could then have a
platform for an antenna (nothing real big and no special brands yet, please)
of some kind that will work the WARC bands. I could even stack up a 6 meter
antenna as well. I was checking out the guying for these two towers and was
a little surprised that the Rohn 55 needs 3 sets of guys at 100 feet just
like the 45 does. I had always thought that the 55 took only two sets of
guys. (It, actually, does at the 70MPH rating)

I was wondering if maybe gamma matching the tower with multiple radials
would provide a significant improvement on 160M? Is the Rohn 55 overkill?
The weather here in Deep South Texas is seldom bad. We have a few
thunderstorms and it very seldom freezes. I am inland from Brownsville about
75 miles so a hurricane is possible, but the last one in these parts was
1990.

Sunspots are coming!
Bill, W5VX