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Title: 50 foot tower Post by: flintstone mop on October 15, 2006, 06:45:52 PM Hello again,
I might be given a 50 foot tower that is in pretty good shape. Would this be any good for 160M? Maybe I should check out the Antenna section. An Inverted "L" should prolly be 60-70 feet vertical to start. 50 feet insulated from ground? Thanks Fred Title: Re: 50 foot tower Post by: Steve - WB3HUZ on October 15, 2006, 06:56:40 PM Don't bother insulating it from ground if you are going to put up and inverted L. Just use wire for the L and the tower for support. As always, the radial field will make all the difference.
Good luck with it. Got my 160 meter dipole up yesterday. Hope to work you on Top Band soon. Title: Re: 50 foot tower Post by: Jim, W5JO on October 15, 2006, 08:36:54 PM What HUZ says. Use some schedule 80 PVC as spacers and run a wire up as high as you can on the tower then make the turn horizontal to something as high as possible. 165 to 175 ft. with a series variable cap of about 300 pf. This will allow you to tune out the reactance almost anywhere on the band. Cover the ground at the feedpoint with radials, at least 16 or 32 if possible and attach to the shield of your 50 ohm coax.
Title: Re: 50 foot tower Post by: Steve - WB3HUZ on October 15, 2006, 10:17:12 PM Hey Mop, 160 was primo tonight. No static and big sigs. Talked to WA3GMS, W1GHW and KC2DMC. Everyone was at leat 50 dB over the noise. Joe was 80 dB over the noise. And this was with a 14 kc bandwidth!
Got on dude. Title: Re: 50 foot tower Post by: WA1GFZ on October 15, 2006, 10:20:29 PM Huz,
Listen on 1945 Tuesday night lots of signals on the gray hair net. Title: Re: 50 foot tower Post by: Steve - WB3HUZ on October 16, 2006, 08:52:19 AM Need to trim my dipole some to get up there. It currently resonates near 1810. By next week I plan to trim it up to 1890-1900. Then I should be able to roam from 1885 to 1945.
Title: Re: 50 foot tower Post by: flintstone mop on October 16, 2006, 11:19:32 AM YUP
Last nite 7:30 PMish were strong sigs from KB8MTZ and W9AD and K8TV. I had to leave the air cox I was gettin in the TV in the family room. The system in the living room was cleaned up but the wife wanted to see a VHS tape in the family room. Soooo it looks like more dead band testing.............geeesh Fred Title: Re: 50 foot tower Post by: Steve - WB3HUZ on October 16, 2006, 03:30:50 PM Hope to catch you on there Fred. We can have a WAV Net (Worked All VCRs)! AMfone - Dedicated to Amplitude Modulation on the Amateur Radio Bands
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