[TowerTalk] One of our own...

[Jim Thomson]

Date: Wed, 25 May 2016 11:01:09 -0500
From: Courtney Judd <k4wi at k4wi.net>
To: K7LXC at aol.com
Cc: "Towertalk at contesting.com" <Towertalk at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] One of our own...


hey Steve, yes, I did enjoy the article about verticals/beach, very 
educational! BUT, in the same issue of QST another article "If you can 
hang a full-size vertical loop, then hang a dipole" really made me roll 
my eyes. While I have never done any modeling, 50 plus years of playing 
with various antennas leaves me with the opposite conclusion.  A loop is 
ALWAYS better than a dipole in my experience. I wanted to spend some 
time on 160 some years back so I strung up a dipole at 110 ft with the 
resonant point at 1840.00.... worked great.... all kinds of dx.... BUT 
the 2:1 swr points were only 7.5 kz up and down... even with a tuner the 
antenna preformed poorly beyond that.  It was just un-satisfactory so i 
pulled it down and replaced it with the 160 antenna I still use today. A 
full wave loop fed at a lower corner, top at the same 110 ft point. I 
did have to tilt it 15 deg from the vertical to get it in the property 
lines but it works like a bandit. It is quiet and broad banded: 2:1 is 
1800 to 1890 and works well over the whole frequency! I would NEVER 
replace it with a dipole. Well, thats my 2 cents and I am sticking to 
it! lol, 73's Cort K4WI

##  15 khz  BW ?  What did u use, 40 ga wire ??    The old  f12  160m  rotary dipole,
which was  102 ft long... IE:  LESS than HALF  size,  was   18 khz wide...normal. 

##  if u had used  10 or 8 ga wire,  your BW  would /shoulda been a lot wider, like
100+  KHZ.     What did u use for a balun, if any, on the dipole ?    IF  you only have 
2  supports to hold up the  full sized  160m dipole, that’s a loooong span.   You would need
some  strong gauge copper weld or similar, or heavy gauge  cu wire, to  handle the sag. 

## Either way,  your  BW  would be a lot more than 15 khz.   Perhaps  your swr  meter was
out to lunch on 160m  ? 

Jim  VE7RF