Dave,
I totally agree. I am challenged by having a small lot so have settled
for 55ft crank up w/3 ele Steppir, a 40m vertical dipole and
'experimental' inverted L. It's the "L" that has fascinated me as to how
well it works. I originally put up a 'weekend' antenna which was a 40ft
fiberglass mast lashed to a patio support with bungee cords. I feed the
wire about 9ft up from the ground and had two horizontal radials, about
70ft long each, 180 degrees out from each other. They are about 8ft off
the ground and one goes under a metal carport for about 15ft. The
antenna is about 70ft long so only 30ft or so is vertical and the rest
is horizontal, going to another fiberglass mast at 30ft lashed by bungee
cords to a 2nd floor patio, outside a bedroom. This antenna has worked
35 countries on 80m and another 50+ on 30m. I use a tuner which is about
10ft from the feedpoint of the antenna (it's in a covered area which
serves as a BBQ area). It's just a 1200w Palstar but is protected from
the elements. My 'temp' antenna has now been up over a year. I dont bust
many pileups with this setup but I get thru, especially by monitoring
grey line propagation. Using the tuner, I have even worked about 8
countries on 160m....
The moral is, just put something up, give it a try, modify if necessary
but keep plugging away.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
73
Tom
CX7TT
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