With all the discussions on 4-Squares, thought I'd mention another approach
featured in ON4UN's book and previously written up by K3LR in QST. The
alternative I use is an array of 4 80M dipoles suspended from a 100 foot
tower arranged to the NE, NW, SE and SW and all fed by one of Jim Miller's
Comtek boxes. The dipoles are suspended like slopers but with the bottom
end pulled back to the tower. All dipoles need baluns and the balun gets
supported by a rope to pull the dipoles away from the tower.
This approach has the advantage of utilizing an existing tower for support
and has the bandwidth of a dipole. Mine is tuned for 3.775 and it works FB
for both CW and SSB. Also does not need radials and no worries about uneven
terrain... If I ever redo it, I may make the dipoles slightly unsymetrical
to broadband it a bit.
Tom Whiteside
N5TW Georgetown, TX
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