Wire antenna musings.

[KG4NEL]

It's finally happening. After 5 years of undergrad, several years of living the post-grad nomadic semi-urban (+e) lifestyle, I'm finally moving in early June to a place that I can set up real antennas. Thinking of going with wires for now - a tribander on a guyed mast may be in the future, but not until next year.

I have some trees on one side of me that look to be 60' or so. I'm considering two major options - both will be fed with 450-ohm ladder line to a stout 1:1 current balun.

- Center-fed doublet in the highest possible tree I can find, which likely will be no higher than a 1/2-wave on 40m.
- Some kind of inverted-L, with a radiator sloping from the house to the highest tree. Room for radials is not a problem, although they'd have to go under a gravel driveway.

The doublet idea seems to have the least complications, and gets the antenna farther away from the house...all good things, but looking at NEC plots makes me worried that being 1/4-high on 80m is going to be a cloud burner.

What say ye?

:yum:

[PA5COR]

My OCF is about 45 feet up straight line.
80 meters is Europe good signals, outside Europe a bit less, but still DX can be made.
Living on young seaclay annd good R.F, ground.
My inverted L 77 feet high alu tubing and 77 feet wire running down to 45 feet above ground uses a autotuner at the feedpoint at the bottom of the antenna ( MFJ 998), and 3000 feet of copper wire in and on the ground.
That one works quite nice on 160/80/40/20 where the vertical component is good for much better DX as the OCF.

For 17-10 another vertical is on the roof.
Using a homebrew active loop antenna for 160 for recieve.
Get the dipole up as high as possible and just try, you can always build the more elaborate L antenna or if you put down the gravel first install ground radials just in case.

A dipole should be 1/2 wave of the ground, nobody except the lucky few can do that, we all use compromise antenna's.
Even 1/8 wave above the ground will give more losses to the ground and a changed elevation of the main lobe pattern, but there iis no switch off, you will still be able to work DX but with a bit more difficculty.

Good luck putting the antenna up ;)

[NQ6U]

More or less what Cor said about compromise. None of my antennas are as high as they ought to be in theory but I've still managed to work some DX with them, even a few rare entities. True, I'm never going to be a serious contender in any contest but I still get to enjoy the hobby.

Put up whatever your situation allows and have fun!

[K7SGJ]

More or less what Cor said about compromise. None of my antennas are as high as they ought to be in theory but I've still managed to work some DX with them, even a few rare entities. True, I'm never going to be a serious contender in any contest but I still get to enjoy the hobby.

Put up whatever your situation allows and have fun!

Yeah, but you get some divine help guiding the radio waves to your place.

[WØTKX]

If you have the room, put up a dipole and and an inverted L. So you can switch between horizontal and vertical.

Not currently up, but at the last QTH the Gap Titan vs the loop was very interesting on 7Mhz and up.

[w0aew]

Use the doublet and don't worry about 80m DX. That's what the other bands are for.

[KG4NEL]

What if I need to get at least several hundred miles away before I find people I want to talk to on there? ;) :p

[K7SGJ]

What if I need to get at least several hundred miles away before I find people I want to talk to on there? ;) :p

cell phone

[PA5COR]

As i said before at 40 -45 feet high i work all europe and Russia on 80 with relative ease, 100 -1000 watts mostly just running 100 watts.
If you will get your antenna up at 1/2 that hight you will go to a more NVIS antenna, good for local contacts up to 1000 Km's worse outside that scope.
You also will experience more ground loss, but that won't mean no DX or no good signals withing 1000 Km's just that the DX and above 1000 KM signals will be less as good as 40-45 feet up.

Conditions will make good or bad all these effects, with good cndx you still will be able to make a difference in DX.
If as now we have a CME ( coronal mass ejection) hitting us then the band closes and a beam at 40 meters high and 2000 watts will be worth sh*t too.
Many people make good DX with 5 watts and a half decent antenna, just put the stuff up and enjoy like most of us antenna challenged peeps do.
Try to get the ARRL antenna book, i have as well the RSGB book, the low band DXing from ON4UN, and some older ARRL Radio Amateurs Handbooks, i own several of them the newst 1984... still with a gaggle of valid info you can use today.
Lots of good info about antenna's influence over ground, hight etc can be found in there.

Conditions will do the most, i remember moddifying my FT 847 to Schottky diodes having it on the bench on 10 meters with a 2 feet piece of wire in it, and with 1 watt lowest power testing the audio i got the USA on the line on 10...... from my room at the first floor in the house and 2 feet wire and 1 watt.....from the Netherlands...

Put up what you can as high as possible and as much copper as possible and have fun.
Cor

What if I need to get at least several hundred miles away before I find people I want to talk to on there? ;) :p

[KG4NEL]

Try to get the ARRL antenna book, i have as well the RSGB book, the low band DXing from ON4UN, and some older ARRL Radio Amateurs Handbooks, i own several of them the newst 1984... still with a gaggle of valid info you can use today.

I have an Antenna Book & a couple Handbooks, but ON4UN's is definitely on my list to buy if I get more into low-band stuff.