Walter:

I've tried two methods of feeding the loop(s) here. At first, I just
hooked a chunk (technical term for random length I had on hand) of coax to
the loop, with center conductor to one side and shield to the other side
of the loop. This connected to one port of an MFJ 986 Differential T
tuner. The coax wasn't separately, using the ground connection through
the MFJ tuner and on to station ground, which is a grid of wires buried
under a 1600+ square foot concrete slab that is the floor of my
Workshop/studio/ham shack. .A second method I used was connecting 600 ohm
ladder line to the loop and bringing it down to an old Johnson Matchbox
tuner. The tuner case is connected to station ground, but neither leg of
the ladder line is.

Both methods got out, and I did pretty well with the coax approach, but I
prefer the Johnson Matchbox because I feel it is "cleaner" (another
technical term, meaning I just feel better about the balanced tuner than a
coax tuner) than the coax type of connection. Propagation has been enough
different between the times that I had the coax up and when I put up the
ladder line that I can't do a direct A-B comparison, but I think it may
have been a little better with the balanced ladder line feeder....

Now that hurricane jimena has passed us by, I'll get moving in getting the
big loop up, but now my wife wants me to put a flag/windsock on each of
two of the supports, so that may delay me another week or two.... however,
when I do put it up, it will go up with 600 ohm ladder line feeding one of
my Matchboxes.

Putting up a horizontal loop takes a bit of doing if you want it to stay
up. For the first few I've done, I've just got out the old slingshot and
lobbed a fishing weight over a series of trees, pulling a nylon line
behind, which was connected to a 12 gauge wire that would become the
actual antenna. Fairly quick and it works well as a semi-permanent
antenna as well as a field day "quickie". However, eventually, it will
drift downward and get close enough to the ground you may want to
re-string the wire. Not a big deal, especially from the looks of the
kinds of trees you have. Here, the only trees I have are just too brittle
to keep a wire in them for long. They shed limbs on their own at the
slightest excuse. For a more permanent installation, I've purchased
threaded thickwall (galvanized) electrical conduit in 2" and 1 1/2"
(inside diameter) sizes. Two sections of 2" and two sections of 1 1/2"
conduit total about 40 feet, and with guys at the 30 foot level and
pulleys at 31, 35 and nearly 40 feet I can haul up a variety of wires
without much trouble. The costs did mount, as each 40' pole cost nearly
$100, plus "aircraft" wire cable and clamps, and I had to use a boom truck
to pick them up and hold them vertical until they were guyed. I used
cracks in the lava for three of the four posts, and the last one went over
an existing 1 1/2" diameter 6 foot high pipe at one property corner (a 10
foot pipe sunk in concrete). I'd imagine if you were to do something
similar, the conduit would cost less than here, as you don't have to worry
about ocean shipping adding costs to simple (but heavy) materials like
conduit and pipe. Once I get it all up, I'll total it up and put some
pictures on one of my web sites.

thanks
--Rick

Walter wrote:

Rick,

Thanks for the input, I have been to the big island, twice. Once in
1972, and once in 1978. I would love to go back sometime, but need to
talk my wife into it.

Anyway, it also sounds like you have a lot of real estate. I have a
pretty big back yard. That is almost made for a sky-wire loop.

Here is photo from last year, you can see that I have trees boarding
it all the way around. (the house is behind me when I took the photo)
The dipole is currently hooked to the tall maple in the back on the
left had side of this photo, running back to the house and another
maple tree of equal size in the front yard. There are large trees on
the right hand side of the property just out of view of this photo in
which I could run a few extra supports.

http://www.altonillinois.com/newhouse/backyard6.jpg

when I bought this house last year, I kind of lucked out. I got a
place that is only a half a mile or so from the highest elevation in
the county (keep in mind this is Illinois), and I'm only 50 feet or so
below that (580 feet)

I am leaning towards putting one up. It doesn't sound like it would
take much more work.

How is your feed line grounded?

Thanks.