I have a 400' per leg vee beam fed with 600' of homebrew open line aimed at
Japan and S.America. Its through woods at the top of the trees about 70'
high. I also have two rhombics 180' per leg, one aimed at EU and one east
and west. Two years ago I did well in CQWW 15 meter single band using
these. Using the RBN its interesting to see how my signal stacks up to
K3LR about 75 miles away into EU. Listening to K3LR I hear stuff that they
dont and vice versa. Being bidirectional is great but the extra noise on
receive is not so good. JA is good but more height is needed to be really
loud. They arent perfect but for an all band antenna that maintains its
pattern (mostly) on 40-10 they cant be beat if you have the room. I use a
bow and arrow to shoot fishline over the trees. I had to resort to a
compound bow for the vee beam to clear a 300' swath of trees. I use 14 and
16 ga copperweld and 5/16" double dacron rope...these antennas have been up
for three and four years. A small vee beam will be marginal on 40...pay
attention to your apex angles using the ARRL antenna book.
Steve WA3A
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