My topband antenna was picked on, even before I put it up, with comments
like "where's the rest of it?", "you're going to use 1/8 wavelength elevated
radials - are you nuts", and the like.
Its 38 feet tall, with four 1/8 wave elevated radials (and a common loading
coil to make the radials electrically 1/4 wavelength). A commercial
Gladiator Vertical. And furthermore, I'm very new to topband.
Worked over 100 Europeans, VK, ZL, KH6, 4X, etc in a SINGLE weekend in the
CQ160WW contest - and I'm no hotshot contester either! (not yet :). I do
have lots of 80m experience, I'm stubborn:) (actually I love the antenna,
although I only have the following to compare it to).
The previous antenna was a semi-resonant dipole (I'm guessing it was
tower/guywire interaction, over 3:1 SWR)- maybe 200-300 watts output til the
AMPs pprotection circuitry would kick out. Worked all continents in about a
month!
I'm sure big antennas help (I plan to find out), but even little stuff
works. I even got VK6 and several EUs barefoot while waiting for the Amp to
warm up with the dipole :)
73
Ted KR1G
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