On 16 Nov 2005 08:19:33 -0800, "Paladin" wrote:

Hi Group,
Recently,I put up a linear-loaded dipole for
160-10m. It's ladderline,4/1 balun,
to coax,to good brand auto-tuner. It's supposed to work with 100ft.
of ladderline,BUT....

Hi OM,

It's "supposed to work" is the key phrase here - according to who?
Perhaps this is your greatest difficulty in finding help for a design
that won't be helped.

It wouldn't cover the lower portions of 160. To get this antenna to
work on 160, I had to cut
off 20ft. of ladderline, AND also use a 50ft. piece of coax! I tried
using only 20ft. of coax
because that's all I need to get to my tuner,but it didn't work! ! !

Your statement here contains a great degree of success in it. It
would appear that you have higher expectations than could be
reasonably expected.

Why are the signals that I rercieve on the higher
bands,(160-10m) usually SO LOW in strength ? Ex: On 160 or 80,the antennas s-meter
usually reads over s-9 at night,o.k. Now, the same antenna on 10m or 20m during
the day are reading very low; mostly around 3's and 4's.

The linear loading that you have described in further correspondence
is not particularly remarkable. It follows the aphorism to put more
wire higher into the air, but in reality, that more wire also needs
more volume (surface area, what-have-you). The triple-backed rotor
cable has been trotted out here before, and has never been shown to be
anything but a good match - perhaps. You can load a resistor to the
same effect and you may note similar performance issues in that
correlation.

If you want to keep more wire in the air, build a fantail dipole or a
cage dipole and use more than three wires (six to a dozen instead)
with a truly large, effective diameter at the end.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC