[TowerTalk] trees and verticals

Jim Brown jim at audiosystemsgroup.com
Tue Dec 27 09:47:42 PST 2011


On 12/27/2011 9:10 AM, David Jordan wrote:
> But for the low bands the trees are a significant benefit
> esp when one considers that without the trees there would be "NO" antennas on those bands.

Absolutely. My rule is simple -- do the best you can, then get on the 
air and have fun with it. And, when I'm not on the air, I'm still 
thinking about how I can improve my station and antenna farm. For me, 
the point is that EVERY qth presents a different set of problems and 
opportunities for antennas. The challenge is to figure out which of 
known good antenna types that CAN be rigged at that qth at reasonable 
cost, and without causing issues with the XYL, the neighbors, or the 
city, are likely to work the best.

That was my approach here. When I first moved here, I made a scaled 
drawing of the trees around my clearing, figured out the distances 
between various pairs of trees and the azimuth of a straight line 
between those that were far enough apart to support resonant dipoles. 
This took a lot of work with measuring tape and compass, and I used 
Autocad to make the drawing. But it really paid off.

Since then, I've helped at least a half dozen hams think about what to 
do with antennas for THEIR qth, and I enjoy doing the same thing on 
Field Day and county expeditions for the California QSO Party..

73, Jim K9YC



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