[TowerTalk] Full 40 mts dipole on side of a tower

[Craig Smith]

Dave …

I’ve been following this mystery since your first post.   Lots of very experienced people contributing (including yourself), so I’m sure the solution will surface shortly.  

One thing that I just now recalled.   I no longer have your initial post handy, but remember that the initial test with the dipole hung up in free space away from the tower was very good.   In fact, so good that it seemed suspicious.   I think the SWR was something like 1.1 over the entire 40 meter band?

Don’t know what height the dipole was, but even a perfect dipole won’t be that close to 50 ohms at most heights.   And, would expect to see some variation over the band.

Questions:

How long is the coax and what type?

You said you had a balun at the feed point.   I assume it is a choke with the coax wound around ferrite?

How were you measuring the SWR?


One possibility is that you perhaps had some unintentional losses (or measurement error) in your first test that went away when you mounted the dipole to the tower?


73    Craig    AC0DS