On Aug 6, 11:52 am, "Rick (W-A-one-R-K-T)"
wrote:


I'm aware of the B&W "radiating dummy load" (TTFD) antennas but I'm not
quite ready to give up that much efficiency and I'm DEFINITELY not ready
to blow $300 on one.

If I were to spend $300 , I'd rather put it into a decent tuner,
rather than antenna.
Then you could run a single ladder line fed dipole, if a one
wire solution was better.. Also use it with any other antennas
you might mess with.
I'd never pay $300 for one of those antennas, but heck, I wouldn't
pay $300 for any antenna... It's against my religion.
Actually I was too cheap to even pay $300 for a tuner. I got a coil
form
damaged 989c free, and repaired it. :/
I don't use it much, but it's handy to have around.. Can feed about
anything, including ladder line.. It uses a balun, but I haven't
really
had any real trouble with it as far as noticable balance problems.
Some other tuners might be a bit better though if balance is critical.


I don't mind putting up a multi-legged dipole array but I don't want to go
overboard, and from my calculations (such as they are), I'd need a total
of SIX (6!!!) dipoles all fed with a common feedline and operating on
their fundamentals and third or fifth harmonics in order to stand any
chance at all of covering it all.

Knowing me, thats probably what I would run. Tuning wouldn't be that
big a deal if all the legs are spread out as far apart as possible.
But if you closely stack them, tuning can be a hassle..
But the attraction of this system is that is not really much of a
compromise as far as efficiency is concerned. And instant
QSY too. I'd only bother with the bands I'd know I'd use.
When I was in AF mars back in a previous life, we only used
two freq's for the most part.. Sure they had others listed, but
rarely
used. BTW, yes you can make use of a few other resonant points
that will pop up.. Many will be able to be matched with the radio
tuner. IE: 7mhz can do 21mhz, etc.. Your radio tuner will be pretty
much acting as a line flattener, so the tuning could be off a bit and
still
work ok.
MK