[TowerTalk] 80 meter antenna choice

[Richard (Rick) Karlquist]

On 7/7/2020 8:12 AM, Jim Brown wrote:
> On 7/7/2020 7:50 AM, Bill via TowerTalk wrote:
>> Your thoughts?
> 
> My only thought is that the performance of verticals is strongly 
> dependent on soil conductivity, while horizontal antennas care only 
> about height. I think you said your soil was average. That would make me 
> concentrate on horizontal antennas, and getting them as high as 
> possible. I have lousy soil but tall trees, and my high dipoles perform 
> very well.
> 
> 73, Jim K9YC
> _______________________________________________

The other side of this coin is my QTH that has very high ground
conductivity.  I did a lot of A/B testing of 80 meter dipoles
vs verticals at heights up to 130 feet.  At that height, a dipole
(over my ground) is as good as a ground mounted vertical over
a large ground screen. With the dipole 60 feet high,
the vertical is typically 10 dB better for DX.
Or course, within a few hundred miles the
vertical is basically dead.  So Jim (as usual) is correct for
most users.

An inverted vee at 95 feet on your tower will work well ...
on 80 meters.  OTOH, it may royally screw up the patterns of
the higher frequency antennas that are already on the tower.
My usual field day setup is to have a tower with a tribander
that also supports 80 and 40 meter inverted vee's at right
angles.  However, I let the vee wires drop to the ground at
the start of the contest and then at sunset, pull them out to
their tie off points.  At sunrise, I let them drop down again
for the finish of the contest.  I can't prove how necessary this
is, but it doesn't hurt (except for a few minutes of down time).

I don't see any really good solutions for 80 meters on your tiny lot.

73
Rick N6RK