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Old December 23rd 06, 06:05 AM posted to rec.radio.amateur.antenna
[email protected] nm5k@wt.net is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 757
Default Question about 20-meter monoband vertical (kinda long - antenna gurus welcome)


Zommbee wrote:

What do you recommend I do at this point? I have the whole weekend to
either play with the
new antenna or quit obsessing over it :-)


Sounds fine to me.. A monoband on 20m will seem fairly broadbanded.
Ground losses can add to this, but you are stuck at your height, so
it's
not worth worrying about. All you could do as far as that is add more
radials.
You are almost a 1/4 wave up, so things could be worse I guess..
As far as the match, 1:5.1 is fine as long as your radio is happy with
it.
That's the only thing that matters. Trimming the antenna will not help
performance unless the radio requires it to put out full power. If you
are
putting out full power, "most rigs should at only 1:5.1", thats good
enough.
If not, you might want to consider tweaking the lengths a bit. Most
likely
you could just add an inch or two to the radials only, if you wanted to

avoid pulling it all down. That should be enough to dial it in. You
won't
lose too much using a tuner, but if you are running QRP, I'd avoid it.
There is no real need to use a tuner with that antenna. I never use a
tuner
if I don't need it.. Which is about 98% of the time.. I have a big
tuner,
but the only thing that really sees any use is the wattmeter that's in
it. :/
MK