[TowerTalk] Dipole Center Connector

[Jim Brown]

On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:09:05 -0600, AD5VJ  Bob wrote:

>As I have been reading on the 80 meter dipole antennas I understand
>that you will not be able to cover the entire band due to the
>size of the band, so I will attempt to zero in on the DX portion of
>the band.

Not true, Bob. Don't confuse SWR bandwidth with how well the antenna 
works. Study W2DU's excellent work on this, which is on his website. 
Google to find it. 

Both here in Santa Cruz and back in Chicago, I've quite successfully 
used 80M dipoles cut for the low end of the band (typically around 
3570 kHz) all the way up to the top of the phone band. All you need 
is a decent tuner. I use the Ten Tec 229 and 238 (essentially the 
same, different cosmetics), which are rated for legal power. The 
antenna in Chicago was even narrower than a standard dipole because 
it was shortened and used loading coils, but it worked fine too.  

It helps, of course, to use bigger, high power coax if you're 
running power. But I ran here in Santa Cruz for nearly a year with 
RG59 into my high dipole, and it worked fine. 

73,

Jim K9YC