On Friday, June 17, 2011 2:33:18 PM UTC-5, Michael wrote:


1. Set up a butternut HF9V on a roof mount approx 30-35 feet above the
ground with tuned radials. The problem being, the footprint of my
roof is only 35' x 35'. With the antenna set up in the center of the
roof, there will be only a max of 17" to string the radials outward.
I'd have to "snake" them in order to fit and figure out how to secure
them. Another draw back is that verticals tend to be noisy. Not to
mention shelling out money for a roof mount set up and putting lag
bolts in up there.

It could work pretty well as far as verticals go,
but all the tuned radials will be a pain to deal with
for all bands. It would be easier to ground mount, but
of course, being the antenna is lower, the local space
wave on the higher bands will not be as strong as elevated.
But it will make little difference on the lower bands
as long as you plant the ground radials. One plus to the
ground mount, is the radials don't need to be tuned.
They can be any length and still help. Where as elevated,
untuned radials that are not in use are fairly useless.


2. Set up a GAP Titan on a roof mount approx 30-35 feet up. No
radials needed with that antenna, but I have been told/read that
unless perfectly assembled, they don’t work as advertised. Again...
Verticals can be a noisy and the set up time and cost.

Never tried one. But it wouldn't be in my cards if I
were in your position. Also, verticals are no noisier
than any other antenna. It just depends on the polarization
of the noise signal. Noise is RF just like any other signal,
and follows the same rules.


3. Set up a Chameleon V11 or v12 vertical rigid diepole on a non
conductive mast mounted to brackets on the side of the house with the
feed point of the antenna being about 25 to 30 feet high. This antenna
is advertised as a "dipole" and does not need any radial set up. There
have only been a few reviews of this antenna. All are very favorable,
but is it too good to be true??? A vertical mounted rigid antenna
working with no radials even if it is being called a dipole ??? With
this antenna, I’d be able to avoid having to use a roof mount. Just
mast it to the side of the house high enough for the bottom pole to
clear the roof. A simple install. Still… No idea at all how good
this antenna is.

New one on me.. Never have seen one.. Sounds like a
typical half wave design..


4. Go with a wire antenna. I had in mind using the Buckmaster off
center fed diepole.

I'm not a fan of off center fed dipoles.
But overall, I think a wire antenna is your best
choice if you want a decent NVIS signal on the
lower bands.
But... I would use a center fed dipole.
If you require all bands, I would use the
largest dipole you can squeeze in, preferably
80m size, "60-65 feet per leg", and feed it
with ladder line, and using a tuner at the rig.

Myself, I prefer parallel coax fed dipoles, but
I usually don't run every single band.
IE: I have 80 and 40 dipoles on the same coax
feed. I'm on one of those bands 90 percent of the
time. I can slap a tuner inline if I want to
work one of the other bands. Some loss, with it
still usually works well enough to talk.

I also thought about using my current short-wave listening antenna to
transmit with, but I think I’d have to change the matching
transformer. I’ve got an Inverted L with a 30” vertical length and
40” horizontal length. That receiving wire is stranded copper made
specifically to be used as receiving wire. It is attached to a
matching transformer (an ICE-180) that is mounted to the foundation of
my house about two feet off the ground. That ICE-180 is in turn
directly grounded to an 8 foot brass grounding rod. The feed line is
50 ohm coax that runs up the side of the house from the ICE-180 and
into the shack. The ICE-180 is a “receive only” item and I don’t think
you can load it up.

An inverted L can work fairly well in some cases,
but you would need to rework the feed system to
transmit. And a ladder line fed dipole would probably
outplay it anyway for most all bands.



Anyway, my vote is ladder line fed dipole for all
bands 80-10. Will need a tuner though.. Or use Cecils's
tunerless method with cut feed line lengths.