Full size 160 meter antenna on a small lot

[K9FON]

well il just going to put up a regular "plain vanilla" 1/2 wave dipole. It was a nice day outside today so I measured the lot and i will have plenty of room for the ends.
I have a friend that is trying to talk me into getting one of those goofy looking Bilal Isotron antennas. I have heard they are junk and dont work that well, but i see them all the time being sold at the hamfests. :-|

[N8YX]

well il just going to put up a regular "plain vanilla" 1/2 wave dipole. It was a nice day outside today so I measured the lot and i will have plenty of room for the ends.
I have a friend that is trying to talk me into getting one of those goofy looking Bilal Isotron antennas. I have heard they are junk and dont work that well, but i see them all the time being sold at the hamfests. :-|

In a word: Don't.

Most of their radiation is off the feedline. Even a shortened, loaded dipole is going to be better - especially on 160.

John gave you a good suggestion - configure an 80M doublet as a Marconi and feed it with a tuner. Make sure to lay down a decent counterpoise, though.

[K9FON]

Well i guess there is market for amything then. I just dont see how those Isotrons work all that well. But guys buy them and use them. I actually worked a guy on 75 the other ngith that was using an Isotron and he gave me a decent 5/7 signal. Granted he wanst that strong like someone on a dipole but he sounded ok. I was shocked to know that he was using an isotron. I have the room here so i can just put up a regular dipole.

[kq9j]

I have had a full-size 160 meter dipole up on my small lot for years. The first half of each element comes down from the tower like a normal inverted vee, then the rest of each element is bent and folded back and everything possible just to get it to fit on the lot. Maybe making some loading coils and shortening the elements would pretty it up a bit, but it works so dang good I don't want to mess with it.

[N9FE]

Use an 80 meter doublet fed with balanced line. Tie the ends of the balanced line together and work it against a good ground. Won't be the greatest but will steill get you out on 160.

This is what i do.. It does work..

[w3bny]

Look at Alpha-Delta's "DX-LB" series of dipoles. 160-80-40 in a 100' overall length package. This would be doable in your situation, and could be easily duplicated by the amateur constructor. If you need extra bandwidth, you could always get clever with a pair of vacuum relays at the ends of the thing and switch in an extra foot or two of wire:

Ive owned one of the DX-LB+ antennas. Not bad. Once you see it you will be kinda upset on tossing money for it. But I looked at it like I was buying the coils. The fan wires are incidental. It worked.. It loaded up 160 and I made contacts. Better than no antenna on the lot!

[PA5COR]

The plot of land here is just 100 feet by 25 feet :roll:

With the use of the houses nearby i put up a FD-4 OCF, lengthened it on the short end with a coil and 30 feet of wire to make it resonant on 160 m.
Total length of the OCF is now 55 meters, or 185 feet, at 13 meters above ground, or 45 feet.
The rest of the bands were not effected, so now the OCF works as shortened dipole for 160 and 1/2 wave for 80 etc.
Next was the vertical, ( there is always room to go up) 45 feet of 1 1/2 inch glass fiber mast, helically wound 1/10 inch alu wire and now 2 x 12 meters ( 40 feet) wire as T antenna over 1400 feet copper wire in the ground.
As just helically wound vertical iit worked just fine, the ground here is quite good young sea clay very moist.
The ground radials are just 2 inches deep in the ground, covering my patch and some outside it.

Te vertical is 45 feet high, on it now approximately 120 feet of the alu wire, and the 2 x 12 meters top capacity.

SWR 1:1 on 1850, but thanks too the top hat quite workable over a larger part of the band, 1810 to 2000 within 1:3.
I set mine to 1850, where i work the most, so if you make the center of your 160 meter band resonant it would cover 1810 to 2000 KHz within 1:2 SWR.

That is what my MFJ 269 analizer told me ;)

I run the coax directly to the vertical, just a !:1 balun at the feed point, and 800 watts in it without any problem in the city here.
( SB 1000) and it is just used as monobander for 160 meters.

Some pictures are here in the antenna section.

73,
Cor

[kf4jqd]

I have a doublet antenna that is cut for 75m, but fed with 450 ladder line. It works well on 160m! Side note: If you can put up any 75 dipole antenna. Replace the coax with 450 ladder line. You now have antenna that works 10-160!

Andy