[UK-CONTEST] Verticals

[Adrian Rees]

FWIW
 
I use a three band vertical (ish) on 160, 80 and 40. Its home brew, cheap and works. 
 
On 160m its a sloping Inverted L, fed against earth (comprising stock fencing, wire and anything else metalic in the ground). This resonates at 1880KHz with a fairly Hi Q.
 
I then added a quarter wave vertical for 80m, again fed against the same earth and fed by the same coax. The 80m section is suspended  from the sloping lower section of the 160m inv L by some ceramic insulators (old Bulgin ones about 12 inches long). The 80m section was tuned up seperately to the 160m section, and initially resonanted around 3.8 MHz. I then connected it to the same feed point as the 160m inverted L and the resonance dropped to 3.65MHz. Although the Q on the 80m section was not as high as it was without the 160m section connected.
 
I repeated the exercise for 7MHz.
 
The spacers to suspend the wires can be made from anything that insulates. 
 
Of course you could always make stand-offs and do the whole thing vertically.....
 
Alternatively, as someone has said, get a 33 foot scaffold pole, and a trap on the top and add a 33 foot length of wire supported by a Fibreglass pole. Then you would have 80 + 40. To add the other bands, well 33 foot is a half wave on 20m, so suspend a half wave dipole spaced from the 33 foot vertical pole, and fed via a choke balun + length of coax to the base of the vertical. Then one feeder. You can do the same with 15, and 10 m.
 
Cheap multiband vertical.
 
Hope this helps.
 
Adrian MW1LCR