[TowerTalk] 80 meter wire antenna question

Dick Allardyce (N4RA) n4ra at aol.com
Mon Sep 21 21:25:46 EDT 2015


Hi all,
 

I need some advice about a wire antenna for 80 meters.  I have two 85' towers that support a nearly-square80 meter full-wave loop broadside to EU. It fits nicely, but the bottom is only about 10' off the ground.  It's fed in the center of one vertical sidewith a 1/4 wave of RG/11.  It works well. 
I'd like to hear of opinions or experience with adding awire parasitic element at this low height.  Specifically, I'd like to add a half-wave wire yagi element spaced about .15WL that would be switchableto 3 different lengths: phone director, CW reflector or phone ref/CW dir.  I change the physical size of the loop for CWor phone.  I'd like to remotely switchdirection (and mode) of the resulting antenna by changing the length of theyagi element.
Any opinion as to the usefulness of a parasitic element ofthis design with the whole thing so near ground?  The yagi element will probably only be about30' in the air.  I don't expect 2 elementperformance, but I don't want to bother if someone already knows it would be awaste of time.

73
Dick
N4RA
 


 


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