On Jun 23, 8:44 pm, VK3XL wrote:
Thanks all who have replied to my question. I am glad to hear that there
are no serious detrimental effects of feeding the antenna mid way along
one side rather than at a corner. I should have mentioned that I am
intending to make a horizontal loop antenna rather than a vertical.
Another interesting point came out of this, a delta loop may provide a
better fit in the space available when the tree locations are taken
into account. Again thanks for the info

73 de Mike VK3XL

--
VK3XL

Hi, Mike.
I have been using a 160 meter, horizontal, almost square loop since
January. It is suspended from four 36 foot push-up masts at about 33
feet. It is fed at a corner with 125 ft. of home made 600 ohm feed
line. Works on all bands with an antenna tuner. Even made a couple of
local 6 meter contacts.

The challenge is to get each of the 4 wire legs under the same
tension. The connection of the antenna wire to the corner insulators
must be able to move so you can get it all evened up. Once up, the
back stay at the top of each mast, along with the 90 degree antenna
wire make for a very stable installation. The fierce winds we
sometimes have in Central Oregon hardly move the antenna wire.

I made the corner connectors out of a circular piece of brass by
milling a circular slot about 1 inch away from the center of the
circle. Then cut the circle into 4 sectors. I machined 4 brass covers
to fit over the slot after the antenna wire is placed in the slot. The
covers are held by 4 small socket head cap screws. Anti-seize compound
protects the threads from rust. A hole is drilled in the back of each
brass corner piece to connect to the ceramic insulator. I cut lengths
of heavy copper wire and after putting it through the insulator and
brass corner piece, pounded the ends flat. The heavy wire was formed
into a loop with overlapping ends. The heavy wire ends were then
drilled to accept a small machine screw and nut to hold the ends of
the copper wire loop.

The top of each push up mast has a pulley and 1/4 inch rope to pull up
the antenna corner. Several trial runs were made get it all up in the
air and get the tension pretty much equal.

I think you will like your antenna a lot. Good luck with it.

73's Paul, KD7HB