Suspended 40M Vertical

[flintstone mop]

There's an interesting article in QST about a suspended 40M vert.
Maybe old stuff revisited. PG 34August issue

Fred

[WA3VJB]

Saw that.
The author acknowledges it "radiates poorly in all directions," and is inferior for stateside work because of its low takeoff angle.
For international AM a beam makes more sense, plus, the db you preserve by not being cross-polarized as with the vertical.

[Sam KS2AM]

Saw that.
The author acknowledges it "radiates poorly in all directions," and is inferior for stateside work because of its low takeoff angle.
For international AM a beam makes more sense, plus, the db you preserve by not being cross-polarized as with the vertical.

An HF signal arriving via skywave will be elliptically polzarized regardless of whether the antenna at the transmitting station was vertically or horizontally polarized.

I took the authors "radiates poorly in all directions" comment as humor since that can be said of any vertical antenna.

[k4kyv]

I took the authors "radiates poorly in all directions" comment as humor since that can be said of any vertical antenna.

On 160m and 80m, a vertical at least 1/8 wavelength long, with efficient matching and a good radial system usually works well.  On 40m it probably would skip over most localities closer than a couple of thousand miles but would still be a good DX antenna. I have heard more than one report of a multi-element vertical array on 40m making a killer DX antenna.

You can thank the hammy hambone installations that use a JS ground system like a water pipe, chain-link fence, 8 ft ground rod or just one or two buried radials, as well as those bogus commercially made "no radials necessary" short verticals, for the un-deserved  "radiates equally poorly in all directions" reputation of the vertical.

[K1JJ]

You can thank the hammy hambone installations that use a JS ground system like a water pipe, chain-link fence, 8 ft ground rod or just one or two buried radials, as well as those bogus commercially made "no radials necessary" short verticals, for the un-deserved  "radiates equally poorly in all directions" reputation of the vertical.

Yes, to get a vertical antenna to perform in the league of a high horizontal requires a huge effort and being blessed with great QTH conditions.

The low angles, which is the carrot/lure of a vertical, need many acres of CLEAR area on 75M or 40M for these low angles to clear the local area with little attenuation.  Plus the Earth soil ground should be reasonably good for many wavelengths away to support these low angles. In addition, the radial system needs to be efficient which equates to at least 60  1/4 wave radials or experimenting with raised radials.

If that's not enough, if the station to be worked is a "local," the high angle radiation from the vertical will be down as much as 20db or more.

There are DX stations that have powerful signals out of Europe on 75M using 4-square vertical systems. But talk to them about it and we will find most have spent many, many hours perfecting it and probably live on a farm with acres of rich soil and flat land.

As the frequency goes up the requirements get easier due to the reduced physical dimensions of the vertical, radials and clear/flat area around it.  IE, it is easier to erect a good working 10M/20M vertical system vs: a 75M/160M vertical system.

The bottom line is for most hams, having both a low and high horizontal antenna to cover the various angles is probably the best bet. Ground conductivity can be poor, there can be buildings in the antenna vicinity and with good trees, (or a tower) the overall job can be done in a weekend. A 40M dipole at 60' is a great low angle radiator. A 40M dipole at 30' is a great high angle radiator. Hard to beat that combo.

Still, there is a romanticism about verticals that will always keep us trying them.  We should be well aware of the difficulties and challenges so that our vertical antenna installation plan is well thought out.

T