Ice storm - rebuilding antenna farm - advice needed!
 

I lost all my antennas this week in an ice storm. Shows
how bad my decision was stringing them up in the trees.

Oh, well - it's just wire... Luckily, the lightweight cord
that was holding up one end of my 160/80m trap dipole
failed before the trees did so when the branches came
down, there was no damage.

Now - to the rebuilding! I don't operate much above 40m
and my B&W rotary antenna switch was destroyed. I'm
also left with much fewer branches to hang dipoles from.

Before, I had plenty of trees, coax & wire. I had single or
dualband (fan) inverted V's for each HF band. Now that's
out - no antenna switch and no tree space for more than
2-3 antennas.

Which would be better - adding 40m traps to my 160/80m
antenna or leaving it as is and buying a tuner? How well
would a 160/80 trap dipole up 25-30' work on the higher
bands when used with a tuner? When I speak higher bands,
I'm referring to 40 to 6 meters. I'll add a cushcraft MA5B
and V/UHF antennas later.

The current antenna is about 220' of #14 wire with 3.9mhz
traps. The traps are 8.33 turns of RG58 around a 3.5" form.
The antenna is fed directly with 60' of RG58 and so far has
proven to be a good performer on 160 & 80 meters. It has
low SWR at 1.88 and 3.9 mhz.

Any ideas, folks?

Ken KG0WX

"Ken Bessler" wrote in message
news:n_iEd.17594$ph.13027@okepread01...
Any ideas, folks?

Ken KG0WX


Ken,
Sorry to hear about your ice storm.
Can you make the antenna 240 feet long? I use a centerfed dipole with w7fg
600 ohm balanced feed that long. It tunes well on 160 to 10 meters with a
Ten Tec 229 tuner and balun. Of course the antenna pattern may not be what
you want.

I use #10 copperweld, 750 lb Dacron supporting rope, and 5 1 gallon
containers of anti-freeze on the pulley end.

Regards,
Ed, N5EI
Ed, N5EI




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