Resolution - 160 Meters

Well I told myself I would one way or another get on 160 meters this winter. This weekend was it. I spent Saturday using my extension ladder, yup standing on the top of it, bear hugging the trees & getting the ropes up as high as possible. I had constructed a 42 turn balun with RG-213 on a piece of sewer pipe in the "Chuck" mode for use with this antenna. Several trees had to go and a ton of branches are now lined up for the spring brush disposal project. The new balun was kinda heavy and the 250 feet of #10 wire presented some real weight problems. One end is attached to a mighty oak at the far end of the property. It's at right angles to the power lines out there on the street. The center has a pully connected to the balun and a rope across two trees to hold up that piece of sewer pipe. Works pissa! The other end goes past my tower. An outrigger and an insulated pully again support the wire & it's finally tied off about 25 feet after the tower onto another mighty oak. I do not have a counter weight set up yet but it took maybe 60-80 Lbs of pull to get the ant. tight & up 30-40 feet at all points on the wire. Maybe the counterweight is not necessary here with the wire being about 40 feet lower than the 80 meter flat top. I'll have to stand outside & check it out in the next wind storm. Testing over the weekend with the highest power 160 rig in the shack, a Viking Valiant, got me pretty good reports. I could talk to everyone I could hear and got some decent reports. It can be done! That band is nice & quiet! No sounds coming out of the R390 until someone talks. I feared the line noise, didn't happen, the local noises,didn't happen. Nice & quiet. NO FEARLESS FRED and that Stupid Slop Bucket Macaroni Net! I digress..... Anyway I think when 80 goes long which seems to be at sunset around here 160 meters is the only option for some AM activity. I can still slug it out on 75 but the noise & dileberate interference of any AM transmission is getting old. I do believe however that we need more guys to be on 3885 all the time or we are going to totally loose that option but that's another post. OK, go outside and start pacing off 250 feet. If it's not totally straight, put it up anyway.
Keith
WA1HZK