The AM Forum

Simple Question.  I would just like to know what you are using.  I have an OCF dipole for 40/80 and nothing for 160 at the moment.

Tom - AB3FL

Tom,

   I too use an OCF dipole with the top 1/2 wave long on 75m. Mine has a single fire feed like the old fashion Windom worked against some insulated radials, some ground rods, and the cold water pipe. The feeder length is about 35', and the top is inv-v style.

   This antenna has resonant points within 160-80-40 meter bands at < 2:1 swr. I use a L-C network at the base to get lower SWR to the feeder which is just about 12' of RG8x. I've used this antenna on 160-15m thus far, and folks do hear me, and some do quite well. I just got off 160m where I was talking to two locals 20 miles away, ground wave. On 160 this is a top loaded (capacity hat) vertical naturally resonant at 1960 Khz acting as a 1/4 wave vertical.

Jim
WD5JKO

I just replaced my G5RV and tuner with a resonant dipole fed with RG-213 and a W2DU choke balun at the feed point on the 80 meter AM window.  It performs much better, however I have lost the ability to tx anywhere too far away from 3.885.  It's actually slightly inverted Vee but not very much angle, maybe 120 degrees.  The lowest swr is nearly 1.4:1 at resonance as expected.  I am building a tuner that can handle the increase of power that I now run.  Once the balanced tuner is built my plans are to replace the feedline with 450 ohm window line and extend the dipole to 135 ft.... It's about at 119 feet for resonance on the window.  I used insulated solid 14 gauge copper.  I'm impressed by the performance increase compared to the G5RV on the 80 meter window.  

73, John

160' center fed. Null on Europe from back when rejecting European broadcast was worthwile.

Works on 40/80/160 because the coupler is built with very heavy duty components plus feeders and most of flat top are #8.

160 - Dipole center fed
80 - inverted V
40 (and above) - Titan or 4BTV verticle

All coax fed. The Titan is going to leave one of these days in favor of a dipole for 40 and a tri-bander for the higer bands.

Bill

80 meters:  Full wave horizontal loop.  Also tunable on 40 and above; also fed as top loaded T on 160 for local work.

160, 80, and 40:  Hy Gain Hy Tower with homebrew inverted L attachment for 160 (10 foot mast off main tower section fed through 40 meter trap with horizontal part of L running to other antenna tower, cut slightly long so inductive reactance is canceled by switch selected capacitors made of RG-11 to cover entire band).

For 160/75/60/40 I am using a 160 meter halfwave with open-wire feedline. Apex at 70 feet and the ends at 50 feet. It is broadside to K1JJ's tower, which is pictured below, so I get about 30 dB of gain into Europe.

40M: A rather modest antenna, but as long as you can hear me, that's all that counts... ;)

T

75 M dipole up about 30or 40 feet, fed with W7FG open wire.  Balanced K1JJ tuna permits operation 160 on up.

Hy-Gain Hy-Tower, DXE radial plate, DXE current balun, 90 70' radials stapled to the top of the ground. It works amazingly well.

(1) 135 ft long dipole, slightly inverted vee, 150° angle at the apex, 119' high at midpoint and about 105' at the ends, fed with open wire line with separate balanced link coupled tuners for each band. Works on 160-80-40, and other bands if I use an appropriate tuner.  Phillystran cable links the ends of the dipole to 25' high wooden poles approximately 500' away from the tower in each direction, at the property boundaries. With about 200 lbs tension, there is very little sag in the dipole legs/phillystran lines.

(2) Quarter wave vertical, 127' high, base insulated, 120 quarter-wave (for 160) buried radials, series fed with L-network for 160, and parallel tuned circuit for 75, although I have used it on 75 only a couple of times.  Radials are brazed to a rectangular ground strap made from copper strip, done with silver alloy brazing rods  designed for soldering copper plumbing together.

Actually, the tower functions closer to a vertical tee.  The open wire line for the above dipole runs up through the inside of the tower to the 119' point.  Close proximity of feedline along the entire length of the tower causes the dipole to add substantial top loading to the vertical, so that the base impedance varies between 150Ω and 350Ω plus numerically similar +j factors, depending on frequency.  Theoretically, the base impedance should be closer to 36 ohms.

The reason the dipole is attached at the 119' level instead of at the tip top of the tower is because that is the top guying point.  I was afraid of one side of the dipole breaking during an ice storm, and the unbalanced pull from 500' of ice buildup on the opposite side might permanently bend the tower above the top guying point.  We do occasionally get significant ice storms here.  The top 8' of the tower is probably ineffective as part of the antenna. When I designed the antenna I did not anticipate the dipole having that much effect on the performance of the tower as a vertical.

This is rebuild time. My primary goal is DX and contesting CW/SSB but they should do well on AM also.

For 80/160 there will be a pair of inverted vees for 160, one cut for DX and the other for AM at right angles and one feedline. For 80 and 75 another pair at right angles interspersed with the above and the same feed. Low VSWR, no stinkin tuner needed, and 360* coverage with a bit of vertical pol thrown in. I dont want nulls if they can be avoided.

I may stack another 80/75 130' lower and relay select upper, lower, or both.

A 4 square for both bands with elevated radials. Telephone poles are ready to go in place. Next requires hanging the vertical elements from ropes off 2 towers, running 32 radials for each wire, and building the phasing/switching matrix.

I should have no problem being heard on the Left Coast on either band on AM ;D. Hearing undermodulated peanut whistles on the Beverages may be a problem :P

For 40 I cant compete with JJ to Europe. Just a 2/2 but both are independently rotatable and ULB selectable.

Carl
KM1H

135 ft of copper weld wire.  About 50 ft horizontal.  20 ft of the ends turned down at an angle.  Fed with 600 ohm open wire line from trueladderline.com  Johnson KW matchbox.  This covers 80-75-40-20-15 and 10 just great.  puts out a hell of a signal.

inverted L for 160. Coax fed. No balun.  Coupled to my tower. Its about 40 ft before kicking over.  Tunes the Phone portion of the band great and really works well.   Sucks on other bands. 

Then I have a 10 meter 5/8ths wave Vertical up on the tower. About 80 ft to the top. This antenna tunes 10,12 and 15 flat.

C

Horizontal Full wave 80M loop for all bands.  Fed as a top loaded vertical on 160 against a water pipe ground. Works FB on 80. Haven't used it much on the higher bands yet to get any idea of performance.

75 Meters = Dipole, 90 feet, coax fed. resonate. No Tuner
160 meters = Dipole, 25 feet, coax fed, resonate. No Tuner
40 Meters = Inverted V, 50 feet, coax fed, resonate, No Tuner
Simple stuff.
75 works best. High = Good!

Hello All,

     I load into the chicken wire on my chicken pen.  It works very well.
 
     On Sunday afternoons, I BBQ the cancerous growth that I cut off the chickens backs (I just sew up the incisions with needle & thread).

     They are good (very juiicy!) I bbq them up with onions and my own special sauce.

     The ant doesn't work very well, but the bbq growths are sure good!

Tnx,

Tony

200 ft Inverted L - ground mounted Tuner -All Bands 160-10M

Three Band Fan Dipole 75-60-40M fed with RG-213 and homebrew Guanella rod balun

3 element Ground Plane Beam for 80M

Beverages

Mike WU2D

Why don't the chickens eat the ants?  ???

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

I don't have anything that can transmit on 160 but my OCF dipole with a balun at the feedpoint works pretty well on 80-up.

For 160 I'm using a 97' coil-loaded center-fed 'slightly' inverted Vee of the homebrew persuasion. Got 38 kc of 3:1 bandwidth out of it and it beats the hell out of the Isotron I stupidly tried. On 80 - 10 I use a Hustler 5-BTV mounted in the center of my metal roof. Works pretty darn good, but could probably be improved if I ran new screws through the roofing material to improve the ground plane.

ldb
K5WLF

80:  Full Sized vertical which is just a simple wire into a tree.  Lots of radials

160:  Inverted L;  about 66 feet is vertical  Lots of radials.  LONG Radials.

40:  Butternut right now.  Plan on 4 square this summer

RX on 160/80  K9AY Loop.  Wonderful.

I'm a DXer/Contester on CW primarily, so these might not be optimum antennas for AM short haul.

160: Rectangular shaped full wave loop at about 25 feet fed through 1/4 wave 75 ohm matching line made from CATV hardline.

80: Triangular shaped full wave loop at 25 feet fed through 1/4 wave 75 ohm matching line from RG6 quadshield.

40: dipole at 30 feet fed with RG6 quadshield, with elements for 60 meter inverted Vee hanging from the feedpoint as well.

The loops are cloudburners for sure, but work fine for the kind of semi-local qsos I enjoy. I use them on the higher bands with tuners as well. Maybe some day when the trees grow I can get them higher.

See my JS wire antennas here.

http://www.amwindow.org/misc/huzantennas/antennas.htm

I forgot to include the beverage receiving antenna.  900 ft. in winter, cut back to 390 ft. during growing season when the cropland is leased out to a local farmer.

40: same as 75 just cut fer 40.

75: dipole fed with Belden 8210 KW 72 ohm twin lead.

160: gonna be some 1925 spark era lookalike cage or 3 wire T antenna.
Going to get a EZ hang @ Berryville and shoot up some 60 ft lines. Got 2 new feedlines ran and ready.

I use this

160/40 - Inverted L, 45' vertical x 90' horizontal. Tuner right at the base.
75/80 Dipole @ 60', coax fed

As you can see there are the exotic and erotic aerials. You can be whirl wide or somewhat local or DX can happen.
A VEE is convenient and can give you DX. If your goal is strictly DX then you should look at verticals or stacked antennas like Tom.

BUT The HuzMan has a very nice all around solution that works very well and been known to hop an ocean or two.

Phred

I use the top strand on the barb wire fence that circles my stump ranch for transmit...The forward gain comes from the wall socket...beverages for rx

planned for 160:

Fullsize dipoles for 160, 75 and 40 using single coax feed and homebrew 1:1 balun.  Elements are paced 5" apart using 1/2" PVC as spreaders.  Works well, very well considering it's only up about 50ft. at the apex.

Another nice solution that would not be a far out project.

Fred

Lots of guys have been switching to maypoles.   They seem to have a big signal here in the state. Now you can by fiberglass pushup pole masts cheap..  You could put this up in an afternoon easy.


http://www.qso.com/westsat/Maypole/index.html

Also.. I have been hearing a few guys using the S9 vertical.  Its about $150 with Ground radial kit  One guy can put it up. Not sure about the performance on 80 with the big coil but on 40, they sure put out a big signal. 

http://www.s9antennas.com/s9v.html





http://www.qso.com/westsat/Maypole/index.html

160 M: #1 Inverted L 80' vertical 55' horizontal , #2 Loaded inv vee dipole 70' apex

80/75M: #1 3 wire dipole up 60' fed with open wire feeders and remote tuner,
#2 130' dipole @ 35' fed with 450 ohm line and tuner

40 M #1 pair of full wave loops diamond-shaped @ 70' apex, #2 same as 75M #2

73,  Jack, W9GT

I run 47 feet of barbed wire, I use a cobra snake for an end tie...

Who do you love?

I use a "full wave" (300 feet of #14 wire) 80 meter loop, sorta triangular in shape, up about 40 feet between 7 trees, driven on one of the long sides with 25' of 450 ohm open wire directly to a Heathkit 2040 tuner in the shack.

The Apache doesn't do 160, so I use this on all the other bands with great success.

Random wire, 180 or so ft., unknown exact horizontal length fed by single wire feeder about 1/3 out from end by "L" net homebrew match. Works 160 through 6.
Lobes on higher freqs. are so numerous that coupled with real losses and tree attenuators, it must look like a perfect circle.  ;D

Just about anything of reasonable length matched properly will load the aether up nicely.

Some have even heard 'it' on the air.