"Rick" wrote in message
...

I am interested in operation primarily on 160, 80, and 40.


Your passport to the low bands

ON4UN's Low-Band DXing

http://www.arrl.org/catalog/7040/

Reviews at URL:
http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/2802

CL

Cecil Moore wrote:


Performance wise, I don't think you could tell the real
vertical from the T except for the T's lower feedpoint
impedance.
--
73, Cecil, http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

The T is better if he wants it to act like a DX vertical.
The L is ok, but if the horizontal wire is fairly long,
there will be a good bit of horizontal radiation.
This can be good for a mix of NVIS and DX, but
for DX only, the T is usually better. The T will have
an overhead null the same as a normal monopole.
I'd say most peoples L's on 160 have more horizontal
wire than vertical... :/ I know mine did. I could only
get mine about 45 ft vertical . That left 80-90 ft running
across the backyard. I often feed my coax fed dipoles
as a top hat vertical on 160 by shorting the coax, and
feeding as a vertical. At the moment I have a turnstile on
80m, and a dipole on 40. "6 legs total"
The 4 60 ft wires make a good "X" top hat..
MK

The T is simply a top loaded vertical. The top portion radiates an
insignificantly small amount for the same reason ground plane radials
don't radiate. (Hey, wonder if they act as an "image" mirror to reflect
the signal into the ground?) (That was a joke.) The horizontal portion
of an L antenna radiates like any end fed horizontal wire. If it's low,
most of the radiation is at a high elevation angle.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

wrote:
Cecil Moore wrote:

Performance wise, I don't think you could tell the real
vertical from the T except for the T's lower feedpoint
impedance.
--
73, Cecil, http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

The T is better if he wants it to act like a DX vertical.
The L is ok, but if the horizontal wire is fairly long,
there will be a good bit of horizontal radiation.
This can be good for a mix of NVIS and DX, but
for DX only, the T is usually better. The T will have
an overhead null the same as a normal monopole.
I'd say most peoples L's on 160 have more horizontal
wire than vertical... :/ I know mine did. I could only
get mine about 45 ft vertical . That left 80-90 ft running
across the backyard. I often feed my coax fed dipoles
as a top hat vertical on 160 by shorting the coax, and
feeding as a vertical. At the moment I have a turnstile on
80m, and a dipole on 40. "6 legs total"
The 4 60 ft wires make a good "X" top hat..
MK

A few interesting designs at this web site
[http://members.tripod.com/~KE4UYP/index-22.html] may help you.

One is a a linear loaded 1/2 wave inverted L fed at the top of the L
rather than the base.

Another is a top & bottomed hatted, bottom fed L.

Neither design requires radials.

Author includes theoretical radiation patterns & SWR curves.

73

Terry
W9EJO

That's W8EJO, not 9.

Typo.


Harry7 wrote:
A few interesting designs at this web site
[http://members.tripod.com/~KE4UYP/index-22.html] may help you.

One is a a linear loaded 1/2 wave inverted L fed at the top of the L
rather than the base.

Another is a top & bottomed hatted, bottom fed L.

Neither design requires radials.

Author includes theoretical radiation patterns & SWR curves.

73

Terry
W9EJO

wrote:
Cecil Moore wrote:
Performance wise, I don't think you could tell the real
vertical from the T except for the T's lower feedpoint
impedance.

The T is better if he wants it to act like a DX vertical.
The L is ok, but if the horizontal wire is fairly long,
there will be a good bit of horizontal radiation.
This can be good for a mix of NVIS and DX, but
for DX only, the T is usually better. The T will have
an overhead null the same as a normal monopole.

You're right but I wasn't talking about the Inv-L above.
When I said "real vertical", I was talking about a
normal 1/4WL monopole. The T and the 1/4WL vertical
have about the same performance if the T's vertical
section is not too short.
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com

Harry7 wrote:
One is a a linear loaded 1/2 wave inverted L fed at the top of the L
rather than the base.

We also haven't mentioned the half-square which
resembles the above.
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com

On 11 Jan 2007 22:29:52 -0800, "
wrote:

What's your advice?

Get a copy of ON4UN's low band DXing.

Search the Topband archives antennas.

Measure/estimate your ground conductivity and permittivity and get
comfortable with a modeling program.

And finally, experiment.

I don't mean to be glib but there's really no quick answer to what
antenna you'd be happy with for DX on 40,80 and 160. 30 feet for a
horizontal antenna *is* too low, generally.

Maybe someone can comment on the Voyager DX... I can't, specifically.
Verticals are good, short verticals are compromises and must be treated
with care.

- - - - - - - - -

This is what I use:

http://www.n3ox.net/projects/sixtyvert

I can certainly work more 40&80m DX on this than on the 30 foot high,
100 foot long centerfed wire I used to use on those bands. As far as
160m goes, this is the first time I can work 160 DX at all...

73,
Dan
Your sixtyvert antenna has me rethinking my vertical plans.

I have a forty foot utility pole laying on the ground while I plan the
details for a taller vertical.

In spite of my aversion to guys I think this pole is light enough to
be workable for me. My current vertical is a 45 foot wire off the
side of the tower tuned with an SGC-237. It seems to be working well
in spite of a minimal ground. It appears to me that the guy anchors
could be as simple as a few five gallon buckets of sand.

I sure hate to pay that much shipping though!

John Ferrell W8CCW

What if you have a lot of 50 to 80ft tall pine trees on the acreage? I
live on a 500ft hill that slopes down agressively from a 2 acre flatter
spot at the top. The hill is covered in trees. I have a 70ft tower on
the highest knobe that I can load up well with a gama match on 40m, 80M
and 160m. The wire ground plane I has 45x 120ft wires which run down
the hill through the woods.

The Top-Band seems OK. On 160M I worked all states in one weeked last
winter (contest). But on 80m and 40m I have had very little luck
working anything. I suspect the trees are grabbing all the RF energy.

Because the trees are virticle conductors I'm thinking that a
horozontal dipole might work better. I'll only be able to get it as
high as the tree tops. Maybe an average of 55ft high near the edge of
an east facing clift. Since I live on the West Coast this might give me
good coverage on the States on 40 and 80 meters for next falls Salmon
Run? What do you think?


Bob
AC7PN

For what it may be worth ..

Roy Lewallen wrote:
The T is simply a top loaded vertical. The top portion radiates an
insignificantly small amount for the same reason ground plane radials
don't radiate. (Hey, wonder if they act as an "image" mirror to reflect
the signal into the ground?) (That was a joke.) The horizontal portion
of an L antenna radiates like any end fed horizontal wire. If it's low,
most of the radiation is at a high elevation angle.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

wrote:
Cecil Moore wrote:

Performance wise, I don't think you could tell the real
vertical from the T except for the T's lower feedpoint
impedance.
--
73, Cecil, http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

The T is better if he wants it to act like a DX vertical.
The L is ok, but if the horizontal wire is fairly long,
there will be a good bit of horizontal radiation.
This can be good for a mix of NVIS and DX, but
for DX only, the T is usually better. The T will have
an overhead null the same as a normal monopole.
I'd say most peoples L's on 160 have more horizontal
wire than vertical... :/ I know mine did. I could only
get mine about 45 ft vertical . That left 80-90 ft running
across the backyard. I often feed my coax fed dipoles
as a top hat vertical on 160 by shorting the coax, and
feeding as a vertical. At the moment I have a turnstile on
80m, and a dipole on 40. "6 legs total"
The 4 60 ft wires make a good "X" top hat..
MK


For a long number of years I used a square loop antenna down low to the ground
on HF. It was not fed in the 'usual' place, at the mid-point on the horizontal
wire, either at the bottom of the square loop or on top. I chose to feed it
half way up one of the vertical sides so as to obtain the best results I could
from the vertical radiation for it. That so as to do the best job I could for
40 and 80 meter DX work without going after formal ground plane enhancement and
working the feed point against that, as in ground plane verticals with radials.


In the 40 meter case the lowest horizontal wire was about ten feet or so above
ground level. The actual loop was fed from a coax cable with the ground braid
of the coax tied directly to the loop wire, and the feed match as a gamma match
section using six inch open wire feed insulators for that, plus a series
capacitor made from a cut off piece of coax cable the braid connected to the
braid connect point end of the center wire of the feed coax and the inside coax
wire connected to the gamma match line section. I had pair of three element
quads made this way, with a pair of switched in or shorted wire stubs made from
the same six inch open wire feed lines which if shorted, made that loop a
director, and if opened, made it a reflector. They were supported at right
angles to each other so I had four-way aiming capability here.


You can laugh all you want, but about 270 countries on 40CW confirmed from it
wasn't too bad. And it placed way up there in the DX test single band entries
for a long time from W5 land, which isn't really the easiest place from which
to compete against the East and West coasts of the USA on low bands.


Yes, it was replaced by a four element phased vertical array, with elevated
tuned radials. Which is definitely noisier on receive. But it has the
advantage of being directionally switchable without going outside and getting
on a step ladder four times just to change the fire direction in the middle of
the night, or rain or .. even .. TRW's and twisters in this area of Texas. Of
which there were only twenty tornadoes on the ground in a single day just a
couple weeks ago right around here.






For years now I've wanted to build a low three element rotary vertically fed 40
meter quad to test this against the four square switched phased vertical array
I've used to romp the confirmed 40CW only card count to 321 now. That with
about a level 5 or 6 ground level quality here in sandy pine tree country. But
age, funds, want-to and other more important computer programming work in my
preference list have gotten in the way.


If I ever can get this done I'd dearly love to post the comparative figures on
a real-time real=workem romp! If it wouldn't be too much trouble for someone
interested in this, making a 40 meter wire loop is pretty easy. You only need
a pair of poles to support the top wire. I think you will be pleasantly
surprised how quiet it is and how effective it is, if vertically fed, for
working low band DX stations....


Mike - W5WQN