Ken Bessler, KG0WX wrote:
I was thinking (rare - lol), what if I used
rat shack 300 ohm twinlead and made a
J-pole for 160 meters?

Hi, Ken,

Some suggestions:

1. go to http://www.cq-magazine.com

and download VE3ERP's (George Murphy) HAMCALC
freeware package of 250+ ham radio programs,
one of which is Murph's version of my version
of N3GO's (Gary O'Neill) J-pole design program
from his Communications Quarterly article.

2. Check out AA5TB's (Steve Yates) web site
that discusses J-poles and horizontal Zepp antennas.

http://www.qsl.net/aa5tb/

including a link to N3GO's article.

3. You can use just single wire for the half-wave radiator
and the twinlead for the not-quite-quarter-wave matching section.
For 3850kHz their lengths would be about 121.3 feet
and 58 feet tapped at 21.6 feet from the shorted end
for a 50 ohm feed tap. This assumes about a 1000 ohm
feed impedance for a low, horizontal half-wave radiator.
A vertical radiator feed impedance would be more
like 2000 to 4000 ohms. The matching section can be
at right angles to the radiator if you don't have
180 feet to stretch it out.

This is the theory. Go measure and cut copper
and plastic and let us know how you make out
in real life.

Have fun.

Cheers, 73,

Ron McConnell



N 40º 46' 57.9" W 74º 41' 21.9"
FN20ps77GU46 [FN20ps77GV75]

http://home.earthlink.net/~rcmcc