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Re: Topband: Toploaded vertical - SWR

To: ash.kf5eyy@gmail.com, topband@contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: Toploaded vertical - SWR
From: Grant Saviers <grants2@pacbell.net>
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2018 15:36:53 -0700
List-post: <mailto:topband@contesting.com>
Several suggestions, some already mentioned -

Although your swr plot shows you are in the ballpark for resonance, the feedpoint resistance is very low, as mentioned likely 12 to 20 ohms.  A transmission line transformer stepdown will help a lot.  4:1 likely the best choice.  If parts are hard to obtain, parallel two 50 ohm coax cables 1/4wl long (measured electrically, considering velocity of propagation)  That will make a 25 ohm matching section between 50 ohms and 12.5 ohms which is a better match than 50 ohms.

The swr curve is broadband which says you need a lot more radials to reduce ground loss.  They appear to be buried or on the ground so 20 or 30 more will make a difference, longer than 65' if you can but more 65' is better than a few longer ones.

Increasing the angle of the top hat appears to be possible, so that will decrease the shielding of the antenna by them and improve its performance.

Grant KZ1W

On 9/19/2018 9:36 AM, Herbert Schoenbohm wrote:
An L network with a coil in series and a 500pf variable to ground might do
the trick. You impedance of the antenna is to low and you need to bring it
up.  You can also try extending the top hat wires by 20' each and see what
difference that makes.

Herb, KV4FZ



On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 5:44 PM Ashraf Chaabane <ash.kf5eyy@gmail.com>
wrote:

Hi all,

I just finished setting up my vertical antenna for 160 in 3V8SF
location. It is 17m (55 ft) long with 2 top loading wires 12m each
(40ft), angle to vertical about 40 deg. I added 8 radials, 20m each
(65ft).
With no shunt matching, the SWR at antenna base is 3.2 and at radio side
is 2.8. Is there any way I can improve the SWR further?

Photos of the antenna along with SWR curve can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_3FsWZI3zdi56zz0LOiKNOmfgiWeN6yG?usp=sharing

73 Ash 3V8SS/KF5EYY
www.kf5eyy.info
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