I am looking for suggestions on erecting a first time 160 meter antenna..no,
I don't have and tower and no I don't have any antenna modeling
software....I am just interested in your thoughts....I have never been on
160 and would just like to try it....tnx...Gary..K8BY..Oh..I just live on a
average size city lot....few trees....

"Gary Boyer" wrote in message
...
I am looking for suggestions on erecting a first time 160 meter
antenna..no,
I don't have and tower and no I don't have any antenna modeling
software....I am just interested in your thoughts....I have never been on
160 and would just like to try it....tnx...Gary..K8BY..Oh..I just live on
a
average size city lot....few trees....



put up the longest dipole you can as high as you can and load it with a
tuner... that is the easiest and fastest way. if you have an 80m dipole
that will work ok to try it out. this weekend is a good time to see what
you can do, the cq 160m ssb test is this weekend so there will be lots of
activity.

For starters you can do no better than erect an inverted-L

To cover all bands from 160m upwards, overall length (vertical + horizontal
sections) is ideally in the region of 45 to 50 metres (150 feet to 170
feet.) but shorter lengths are OK although it may be become more difficults
to tune up on 160m.

You will need only a moderate ground such as half-a-dozen surface or shallow
buried ground wires no longer than 15 metres (50 feet). But shorter lengths
will be OK. If there is some wire left over then use it to increase the
number of radial wires rather than increase lengths.

The L need not be in straight line or the vertical section vertical. But
bends should preferably be less than 90 degrees,

On 160m a simple L-match tuner will suffice. 40uH roller coaster and a 450pF
capacitor. Or a selection of coils wound on toilet roll tubes.

It cannot be repeated too often, the higher the vertical section the better.

If your backyard is short in length then make an inverted-U out of it.

The inverted-L is the best all-round antenna for moderately-sized back
yards. It is all-band and for practical purposes omni-directional. Its only
disadvantage is that in a city or town environment it is sensitive to
locally-generated noise on 160 and 80 metres.

If local noise IS a very important factor then the next best thing is a
half-wave dipole for 160m. But this requires twice the length of antenna (up
to 260 feet) to work well on 160m.

Think about more complicated antennas only in terms of single-band,
multi-element beams at the higher frequencies.
----
The best of DX on 160m. Reg, G4FGQ

Reg Edwards wrote:
It cannot be repeated too often, the higher the vertical section the better.

Is that true for a 160m Inv-L used on 10m?
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp



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Gary, you can try 1/4-wave (about 125 ft), end-fed against ground. Simply
take the feedpoint as high as you can, run the wire as high as you can, then
run it around the outside of the back yard. It ain't perfect, but it is
simple and it does work...

73,
Mike KI6PR
El Rancho R.F., CA

"Gary Boyer" wrote
I am looking for suggestions on erecting a first time 160 meter
antenna..no,
I don't have and tower and no I don't have any antenna modeling
software....I am just interested in your thoughts....I have never been on
160 and would just like to try it....tnx...Gary..K8BY..Oh..I just live on
a
average size city lot....few trees....

An inverted L.
Or a Levy with Levy coupler 2X20 meter dipole with 15 meter twinlead.

I use a 1/2 wave inverted L. Vertical section is 65' - Horizontal section
is 180'.

I feed it with open wire thru a homebuilt link-coupled tuner.

Works FB.

No radials



"Gary Boyer" wrote in message
...
I am looking for suggestions on erecting a first time 160 meter
antenna..no,
I don't have and tower and no I don't have any antenna modeling
software....I am just interested in your thoughts....I have never been on
160 and would just like to try it....tnx...Gary..K8BY..Oh..I just live on
a
average size city lot....few trees....

put up the longest dipole you can as high as you can and load it with a
tuner... that is the easiest and fastest way. if you have an 80m dipole
that will work ok to try it out.

Unless you have a legal-limit tuner, or are going to use QRP power levels, I
would advise against that.
If the dipole is coax fed and is 80M 1/2 wavelength, at 100 watts out there
is going to be some crazy-high RF voltages inside that tuner. If it's an MFJ
300 watt tuner, more than likely it's going to arc like a welder.
Feeding the dipole with ladder-line is a different story......

I am in a city lot and use an Alpha Delta DX-A sloper.... but again it helps
to have a tower with a tribander to act as a capacity hat....

Mark W4UDX

wrote in message . ..
put up the longest dipole you can as high as you can and load it with a
tuner... that is the easiest and fastest way. if you have an 80m dipole
that will work ok to try it out.

Unless you have a legal-limit tuner, or are going to use QRP power levels, I
would advise against that.
If the dipole is coax fed and is 80M 1/2 wavelength, at 100 watts out there
is going to be some crazy-high RF voltages inside that tuner. If it's an MFJ
300 watt tuner, more than likely it's going to arc like a welder.
Feeding the dipole with ladder-line is a different story......

Not much. It's still a pretty bad scenario even with ladder line, on
say a T net tuner.
If all a person can do is use a 80 dipole, it usually best to short
the feedline together, or just feed the center pin, and feed the whole
thing as a vertical using the tuner to match. Will usually work much
better on 160m, than feeding a 80 dipole normally. You'll hear the
noise/signal level pop way up when you feed it this way compared to as
a half dipole with all the resulting tuner loss. MK

Hi all,

Interested in this discussion as I'm also thinking abt the low bands and my
back yard is abt 95' by 42'.
What ideas have you guys got on a vertical antenna - even a raised
vertical??

Denis EI6HB



"Mark Keith" wrote in message
om...
wrote in message
. ..
put up the longest dipole you can as high as you can and load it with
a
tuner... that is the easiest and fastest way. if you have an 80m
dipole
that will work ok to try it out.

Unless you have a legal-limit tuner, or are going to use QRP power
levels, I
would advise against that.
If the dipole is coax fed and is 80M 1/2 wavelength, at 100 watts out
there
is going to be some crazy-high RF voltages inside that tuner. If it's an
MFJ
300 watt tuner, more than likely it's going to arc like a welder.
Feeding the dipole with ladder-line is a different story......

Not much. It's still a pretty bad scenario even with ladder line, on
say a T net tuner.
If all a person can do is use a 80 dipole, it usually best to short
the feedline together, or just feed the center pin, and feed the whole
thing as a vertical using the tuner to match. Will usually work much
better on 160m, than feeding a 80 dipole normally. You'll hear the
noise/signal level pop way up when you feed it this way compared to as
a half dipole with all the resulting tuner loss. MK