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Topband: Hi-Z 4 Square versus Beverage

To: 160 <topband@contesting.com>
Subject: Topband: Hi-Z 4 Square versus Beverage
From: Tree <tree@kkn.net>
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2015 09:05:49 -0800
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Hi All-

I have recently moved to a new QTH - at a rental house in the country - and
have totally rebuilt my 160 meter antenna system from the ground up.
Luckily - the landlord was okay with me putting up a tower - and I have 77
feet of tower with a MonsterIR on top of it.  I connected the two elements
at each end of the boom - to the boom (thanks ZL3IX for inspiration) and it
loads very nicely on 160 meters when tuned to 10 mHz.  I have 25 radials
down - and the transmit antenna works fantastic.

But - I wanted to share my results on the receiving side of the equation.
I purchased a used Hi-Z 4 square from K7FL (80 foot spacing) and it is
nestled into a side yard with the closest element only about 40 or 50 feet
from the transmit antenna.  A second element is about 70 feet away.  I have
been pretty happy with the performance of this array on RX.  It is situated
so it "points" just a bit east of due North (instead of the more typical NE
/ SE / SW / NW orientation).  That way it is dead on for EU - JA and the
East coast.

The landlord was also okay with me stringing a Beverage across the winter
wheat field - and I was able to put one up this weekend - pointing around
100 degrees - which is the heading I normally point for working domestic
contests.  According to Google maps - it is somewhere between 1200 and 1300
feet long.  It's about 4 - 5 feet in height - terminated with 450 Ohms and
fed with a homebrew 9:1 transformer (simple 3 windings in series - not
using an isolated ground).  The SWR was 1.2:1 when measured in the shack
with low power.

Comparing the Beverage to the 4 SQ was interesting.  Just around sunset on
the second day of the contest - signal strengths were nearly identical -
but I could hear a db or two less noise on the beverage.  However, an hour
or so after sunset - the noise seemed to be nearly identical.

The fact that the 4 SQ was holding its own compared to the Beverage was
great news.

I used both antennas with the diversity reception in my K3 - and was very
happy with the results.  The 4 SQ picked up the W6 / Arizona stations
better than the beverage - so those signals were easy to pick out by their
placement in the stereo image.  In the morning - I switched the 4 SQ
towards JA and could also easily tell when one was calling me.

Now it is raining hard this week - and it appears I will have lots of water
around the TX antenna - so I am looking forward to playing with it during
the next few weeks - and of course in the Stew Perry contest coming up on
December 26th.

http://www.kkn.net/stew/

73 Tree N6TR
Hillsboro, Oregon
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