"Rick (W-A-one-R-K-T)" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 17:04:52 +0000, Ralph Mowery wrote:

The vertical on top should not have much effect on the installation if
the
ground plane elements are small

Suppose I forget the 6 meter beam (I'm not much of a 6-meter fan anyway)
and just put up a beam such as the Butternut Butterfly (although I've been
reading some not-so-nice things about that antenna so might bite the
bullet and go with something like a TA-33Jr) with a VHF gain vertical
above that?

The radials for the vertical will be 1/4 wavelength at 2 meters, or about
19 inches, and there are three of them.

How high above the beam should I space the vertical?

(The URLs you guys provided, nor anything else I've found, don't seem to
get into that...)


If you go about 4 or more feet above the beam I doubt the vertical and
radials will have much effect. I didn't mention it but the beams I have up
are all horizontal for working ssb. I don't do much FM from the house. I
do have a seperate antenna near the house about 20 feet up for the 2 meter
and 440 FM repeaters . Also a circular polorised beam for those beams to
work the satalites and they will work the FM repeaters also.

I don't think I would get the JR version of a triband. Not sure about how
much power they will take but not enough for many of the amplifiers. Think
I would go with the Mosley or HYGain for the triband beam. I never did
like the CC brand but that is personal and goes back to the days of the
Ringo and 11 element beams.

Here is a link to my setup.

http://home.earthlink.net/~ku4pt/ima...%20on%20tower/

I think you also asked about how far to put a vertical from the tower. Try
to get it 1/2 wavelength or more away. Any distance from the side of the
tower you put it will give it some lobes and distort the patern.

On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:28:35 +0000, Ralph Mowery wrote:

I don't think I would get the JR version of a triband. Not sure about
how much power they will take but not enough for many of the amplifiers.

If I recall correctly the TA33Jr is something like 300 watts. That's
plenty for me... so far there hasn't been anyone I needed to talk to that
I couldn't reach with 200 watts out of the Kenwood or 100 watts out of the
IC-706 or IC-735. In fact a lot of what I do is using 5 watts out of the
FT-817 and it seems I can make the contact as often as not.

Every once in a while I think about getting an amplifier and then I go and
lie down until the thought goes away. :-)

Wasn't always that way... back in the day (late 70's / early 80's) I had
an NCX-5 and an NCL-2000 feeding a TA-33 (full power model). That was
back when we were actually called upon to run phone patches just about
every day on Intercon and MMSN. Then one day I forgot to dial the NCL-2000
back to "tune" mode before tuning up and ended up feeding about 3
kilowatts into the antenna. It didn't like that very much. :-(

Here is a link to my setup.

http://home.earthlink.net/~ku4pt/ima...%20on%20tower/

Nice setup. I think that I probably won't do anything nearly that
comprehensive. So far I haven't had much interest in VHF SSB, and the two
inverted vees and two NVIS dipoles I have work fine on 160 through 40, so
something basic for 20 through 10 and I'll be fine... even that is kind of
a low priority until those bands improve.