I want to thank the hams who replied to my question. I got many informative
replies that helped me.
What I do know for now is that this week I purchased a 150' Rohn SSV tower
from a TV dx'er. It's in good shape and I the fellow who put it up 8 years ago
will also be the tower guy for my job. We're not going to put the whole 150'
up here at my QTH, but are planning on being able to get 100' up. The 100' is
based on wanting to be able to handle at least 15 sq. ft. of windload at 90mph
and 1/2" of icing. The tower will be 150' from my house; it will be close to
an insulated garage. Whatever we get up on that tower, we plan on using 7/8"
hardline. The coax runs will be roughly 175'.
Is the 100' height a good one? A person who has been contesting for a long
time suggested that anything over 70/80' was overkill. That really surprised
me. As a novice, I simply thought the higher the better, period. (except for
eskip on 6) The immediate property I'm on is high and fairly flat. As you go
away about a 1/4 mile in all directions, the land slopes down gently. Beyond a
1/2 mile, the land is rolling hills, none of which is substantially higher than
the QTH we now live at.
If you brainstormers want to suggest how you would use that 15 sq. ft. of
antenna capability, I'd be all ears.
Here's what I want/envision as of now: As for 6 meters, I don't see much
point in going crazy here with the sunspot cycle heading down. A 6M5X at
about 30' will do eskip. If I'm missing a lot of tropo capability by not
having another 6M5X (or heck, I could do a 6M7JHV as well) way up high, tell me
about it.
On 144 and 432, I go back and forth over whether to have single long beams or
to stack 2 more modest size beams. I don't know how much can fit intelligently
on a 15-18' long mast. Also, I don't know to what extent beams can be mounted
off to the side of the tower. I'd assume that the shorter beams would be the
candidates for side-mounting.
On 222, I will be content with a single beam. A nice long one that will
hear very far away. :)
I also want stacked horizontal loops side-mounted on 50 and 144. I have
read some posts in the archives that suggest the 432 horizontal loops are
basically useless. Was that because of inactivity on 432, or because the
antennas are deaf at that frequency? I don't want anything that isn't useful
up on this tower. The reason why I want horizontal loops as well is so I don't
miss anything local or semi-local that's off the side of the beam.
73,
Todd KC9BQA EN63
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