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Re: [TowerTalk] Choke on feed point of dipole

To: "towertalk@contesting.com" <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Choke on feed point of dipole
From: Brian Beezley <k6sti@att.net>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2026 02:02:19 -0800
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Tom Hellem wrote:

"I think the reasonable conclusion is that a center fed vertical dipole is a very difficult thing to make work..."

Tom, at my last QTH I dropped a 40m dipole vertically from a tall eucalyptus. I fed it directly with RG-58 (no choke). The feedline ran roughly horizontal for tens of feet. (The tree was slightly down the slope of a hill from the shack.) SWR was fine. I remember generating pileups during Field Day as a 500 watt home station, but otherwise I was not that impressed with its performance.

The gain and elevation pattern of a vertical antenna are quite sensitive to ground quality. Unless you have really good ground, a horizontal antenna may perform better, even at low angles, if you can put it at a decent height. "Decent" might not be that difficult at 14 MHz and above, but it may be a problem below.

When modeling a vertical antenna, these generic ground constants are much more appropriate than those your antenna analysis program offers:

https://k6sti.neocities.org/hfgc

Brian

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