[TowerTalk] [MWA] OH8X 80-160 monster tower collapses

[Richard (Rick) Karlquist]

On 12/10/2013 6:05 PM, Gary K9GS wrote:
> I can't speak to the 160M signal of OH8X but I have worked them before
> on 80M, 5 ele Yagi on the same tower.  The signal was nothing to write
> home about.  Other SM/OH stations had better signals during the same
> time.  Maybe they had vertical arrays?

A long time ago, I was lucky enough to acquire a 106 foot
crank up tower and the first thing I did with it was to
install a 30 foot mast on the top to hold an inverted vee
at a height of over 130 feet.  The inverted vee was pulled
out to 300 feet away so that the angle was way more than 90
degrees.  Almost a real dipole.  I did a lot of comparisons
to a 1/4 wave ground mounted vertical, and at my QTH (YMMV),
they were interchangeable.  Therefore, a vertical array
should be able to do anything a Yagi could do, at
least on transmit.  I later mounted a MonstIR on the tower.
IMHO, OH8X should have done a similar test on 160 meters
and then maybe they never would have built the big tower.
If they really believed in it, they should not have been
afraid of comparing it against a full size 4 square, which
would have negligible cost compared to the big tower.  It
almost seemed decisions were made for reasons other than engineering.

Rick N6RK