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Old September 7th 03, 10:21 AM
Ed Price
 
Posts: n/a
Default Antenna Suggestions

Sorry if you've seen this before, but I posted a similar question in the
antennas group last week. Unfortunately, I think they're too busy arguing
reflection coefficients, and I only got two replies. Since our station will
use all vintage Swan gear, I hope this is on-topic enough for this group.

I'm building a new ham shack for my company's radio club, and I would like
to hear some suggestions from our group about what antennas would be best
for our location. Here's some details:

We want to provide for all HF bands first.
Maximum power will be about 500 watts, all-tube gear.
Location is San Diego, CA, USA.
The shack is at ground level, immediately against a two-story building with
a concrete & rebar curtain wall about 50 feet high.
The top edge of the concrete wall is about 6 feet above the building roof.
The building roof is a flat metal pan, about 300 feet by 300 feet.
We have a BWD-90 160 M through 6 M folded dipole.
We have an IAC 40 M Double Bazooka antenna.
We have about 1000 feet of RG-213U coax.
We do not have a remote antenna match network.

We plan to place the folded dipole about 6 feet above the edge of the
concrete wall, running N/S, to initially get us on the air.

The Double Bazooka might be strung NW/SE, to give us a maximum lobe toward
the rest of the US & Australia.

So, what should we do next?

A long-wire is one possibility, but we can't get much more than about 10
feet above the metal pan on that building roof.
Perhaps a horizontal loop, standing maybe 8 feet above that pan, for NVIS?
Perhaps a vertical multi-bander (what a ground plane!)

What would you do? Comments & suggestions appreciated.

Thanks,

Ed
WB6WSN