[TowerTalk] OWAs or Fans?

[Roger (K8RI) on TT]

I have several center fed, half wave sloping dipoles for 80 and 40..

I'm debating on putting up several 80 meter OWAs, or just making the the 
Fans for 80 and 40.  On 40, I can get away with RG8X at the legal limit, 
but not on 75/80.

However I only operate below 3.7 and 7.200.The SWR remains relatively 
low, below 7.2 and easily compensated for with the AT5K-HP and the 8X 
handles it nicely. With 80, 3.7 to 3.5 is a different story, but the 
tuner still handles it nicely. OTOH the voltage might be a tad high for 
8X with the high SWR. Still, using LMR 400, or the heavier BuryFlex(TM) 
will work and I "think" I can get enough turns through 7 cores, with the 
coax bundled instead of equally spaced turns around the cores, to tame 
the common mode RF.  If not, I can add a second choke as I have now.

I'm leaning toward the fan instead of the OWA as I can get 5 slopers as 
in the antenna book for switchable directivity with a f/b ratio?  The 
ones to the NE and SE would be hidden by the trees.  Hopefully I can get 
the desired results with a single choke at each feed point.  That's a 
whopping 35 cores. A second 5 core takes it up to 60 cores as well as 
adding up to a lot of coax! For the 7 turn at roughly 21 feet the 5 
chokes add up to about  105 feet and about 80 feet  (I've not calculated 
that yet) is another 400 feet.  I probably shouldn't have given so much 
used LMR400 away.  I might still have 400 or 500 feet left.  I do have a 
new, 500 ft roll of BuryFlex, but I need a 100 feet of BuryFlex to get 
from the AV640 under the sod to the tower grounding plate and then to 
the 6-pack.

Has anyone modeled one of these setups just using dipoles on any band?.

-- 

73

Roger (K8RI)


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