Ron wrote:
Hi

I have a 50 ft tower just ready to throw up something to operate.

Cost is the problem but I have a lot of parts to build. I want to put up a
dipole (I have a manual all band tuner) and my question is should feed it
with ladder line or feed it with coax and then run each leg about 68 ft .

Second idea is I have an old aluminum omni antenna that used to have 3
traps
within it, however at that height it will come down quickly as this antenna
is meant to be on the ground (no ground planes) so I want to make this omni
as long as practically possible and tune it to utilize it as best possible.

Any suggestions? This is really all I have to work with. Only want to climb
this thing a couple times and hope its good for the winter.

Thanks
73s

Ron

Seeing you have a tuner, I would go with an 80 meter dipole fed with the
ladder-line. One antenna for all the bands 80 thru 10. FWIW

Jack Pagel wrote:


Seeing you have a tuner, I would go with an 80 meter dipole fed with the
ladder-line. One antenna for all the bands 80 thru 10. FWIW

Tossing out another option....

I once used a "quarter-wave sloper" off of a grounded 50 foot tower.
Tower was used as a "ground plane". It did a very convincing job for DX
on 40 m and was somewhat directional.

Having multiple antennas is always a bonus. Add one of these to your
antenna switch!

-Bill WX4A

Bill M wrote:
Jack Pagel wrote:


Seeing you have a tuner, I would go with an 80 meter dipole fed with
the ladder-line. One antenna for all the bands 80 thru 10. FWIW

Tossing out another option....

I once used a "quarter-wave sloper" off of a grounded 50 foot tower.
Tower was used as a "ground plane". It did a very convincing job for DX
on 40 m and was somewhat directional.

Having multiple antennas is always a bonus. Add one of these to your
antenna switch!

-Bill WX4A

Or...skip the HF antennas and put up a converted 18" DirecTV dish and
get on 10 GHz. At ground level and 2W, I made a 180.5 mile QSO during
the 10 GHz and Up contest last month. Didn't even break a sweat

Scott
N0EDV