Ralph Mowery wrote:

wrote in message
...
the ground where most of us are is what we have to live with. In my
back yard I have enough room to string wire dipoles for 80 meters and
shorter. I don't have a way to support the antennas in the middle. I
can
go up about 60 feet or so at the ends.

60 feet is good for 30M, marginal for 40M, and crap for 80M and below
for a dipole.

It is also too high for 15M and up.

For best results, a diple should be at .5 labda.

Then again, a marginal 40M dipole is better than no antenna at all.


I have been putting out a lot of furtlizer around the trees, but they do not
seem to be growning much..

Most ideal antennas for most hams are just not practictal or cost too much.
I will agree with what you are saying, especially about they should be up .5
wavelength if possiable. Just difficult to get an 80 meter dipole up 130
feet or so for most hams.

The 50 to 60 feet of my 80 meter antenna seems to work well for what I do.
Mostly talk to a couple of friends within 100 miles from my house.
It should send most of the signal up at a high angle for local coverage.

Yes, it does.

There is a discussion here worth reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_ve...idence_skywave

I stopped at 60 feet for my triband beam antenna as I did not want to climb
any higher. Not afraid of heigths,but not physically able to do much more.
Also the spacing of the guy wires worked out just right for that height.

Like you say, an antenna at 10 or 20 feet is still beter than no antenna.

The highest I can get at my QTH is about 25 feet and for years I wondered
why I could never work anyone other than locals with my dipoles on the
lower bands.

Then I did some study on the effects of ground and switched to verticals.

That was when I made my very first contact on 160 after many years of
being licenced.


--
Jim Pennino