Hi everyone,
Maybe some of you can help me out. I'm looking to improve the 40 and 80
meter signal here at the University of Idaho, W7UQ. Right now the antenna
is a ladder line fed inverted vee wire of unknown origin, up about 50 feet
on the side of a wood chip silo. I've been thinking up ideas, but I'm not
really sure what would work out best. Maybe some of you out there have
experience with one or more of these and could help me out. Here is what we
have here at W7UQ:
On top of the powerplant on campus is our tower with a TH7 on top. I am
guessing the tower starts at 50 feet, and is 50 feet tall. This puts the
TH7 at about 100 feet. There isn't much room to stretch out wires or
anything on top of the tower that would go out.... but something might be
worked out with the powerplant people. Just below the TH7 is a random wire
that seems to be worthless, but it is very large. I've never used this
antenna effectively on any band. My goal is to be loud for DOMESTIC
contests... such as NAQP, SS, and the sprints. Very rarely would I ever do
a DX Contest seriously from here. There is limited space, but a wire
pointed east/west is doable (ie dipole, etc).
I have had a few suggestions already about what might work, but I'm not sure
if some of them would be worth the trouble. On the other hand, they may
turn out to be great. Here is what I have thought up, or people have
suggested:
1) Loading the tower for 80 meters, and hanging radials off the side of the
silo. Sounds like a great idea to me, just not sure if the powerplant folks
would go for it. Would it be THAT much better than a dipole? What about
effectiveness in a domestic contest setting? Would it work at all with 50
feet of tower and a tribander? Hanging radials?
2) Loading the guy wires as a sloper array if they're long enough, shorting
at the breaks in them. Not sure how this would work, but it sounds cool.
3) Dipole on each of 40 and 80, up as high as I could get them. (Seems like
the best to me?)
4) Other wire type inverted vee array such as a double extended zepp. Maybe
it has more gain than a dipole?
5) HF2V butternut vertical. We have one of these in the shack + coax ready
to go up. Aren't they supposed to be ground mounted with a ton of radials?
Not sure we could get it on the ground, or up in the air with enough wire
for it to work.
6) 2 element 40m yagi fixed to states (I WISH! heh) But maybe a wire yagi
with close spacing? It would have to be pretty close spacing... no more
than about 12 feet I think, if that much.
I really like the idea of the tower turned into a vertical, but I'm not sure
if hanging radials would even work? I'm no antenna expert. Dipoles seem to
work OK, at least better than some non-resonant wire.
Any help would be appreciated, and it might even get you an extra mult in
NAQP :)
Thanks,
Chris KL9A
kl9a@qsl.net
http://www.qsl.net/kl9a
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