View Single Post
  #11   Report Post  
Old December 28th 04, 03:20 AM
Jack Painter
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"Ed" wrote

I have two nice 100'+ trees between which it would be quite easy to
install a dipole..... whether it be folded or standard depends on the
comments I receive from you guys on the low noise characteristic I am
questioning.

Ed K7AAT


Ed. if you let the ends of the dipole be the high points and avoid the
inverted-vee (skip the temptation for a little wider bandwidth of the vee,
it comes at some expense of optimum dipole performance and low noise of a
real dipole) you should be very happy with new antenna. I too use nearly
100' trees and achieve between 1/4~ and 1/2~ elevation for the 60-70 meter
bandwidth. I stopped at that height only because it was a point at which the
tree trunks exhibited very little movement. With a 125' span between them,
that was important! Higher would be better, but probably not survive high
winds either. 3/16" milspec dacron holds a balun (supported only from both
ends), the antenna copper, and all 60-odd feet of RG-8X feedline under it
with no problem. I use kevlar standing rigging to hold the blocks of the
running rigging for this antenna. This allows more flexibility than if the
main horizontal support line made a bight over each tree limb at its two
ends. It has survived two hurricanes, many Nor'Easters and a lot of ice as
well. Not too many locales have all those extremes ;-)

73,
Jack Painter
Virginia Beach, Virginia