160 Meters and Antennas

[Gary-N2ACX]

  Well after hamming since 1960  I have become a newbie to the 160M band, had my first QSO with Vertex Joe, N3IBX I have made a couple more on the 160m band. Last night SSB not AM. One guy in Scranton and along with one in Harrisburg Pa. Both gave favorable signal reports with my short inverted 'L' type antenna. I say "L" type because it's not really in an "L" configuration.
  I really enjoy the band  and now getting to wish I had the space for some larger AM gear which I may have to purchase an amplifier like an SB220 etc, so my FT857D rice box won't self destruct  using a continuous duty am carrier. These may be great for SSB but they are pansies for AM.
  I now am looking for other proven designs you guys use for 160 with small properties like I have, being 75' frontage and 150 back and about 75 to 90 across in the back. Pie shaped property.
  This antenna I am using replaced a multiband dipole since, this one is more stealthy and is resonate from 160 thru 6m with the exception of 60 m which is about 3:1.
  I noticed from the reports they guys gave me the transmit is doing very well, but the recieve is mediocre. So I am here to pick the brains of the old masters on this band and an open for any suggestions.Being bascially qrp on 160 running 100w for SSB and AM 30-40w max. so I need all the help I can get....hihi
  Any suggestions? Thanks
 Gary

[ve6pg]

OK GARY...FB...160 AM IS GREAT...WELL,I WOULD SUGGEST GETTING AN AMP THAT HAS 160 ON IT,OR LOOK FOR A DX100,VIKING 1/2,JOHNSON VALIANT,ETC...THESE RIGS HAVE 100 WATTS OUT ON 160,WITH THE VALIANT AT ABOUT 150 WATTS...AS FAR AS ANTENNAS,TRY SOMETHING LIKE A LOOP...THE LONGER THE BETTER IN YOUR CASE,FEED IT WITH OPEN WIRE LINE,TO A TUNER THAT ACCEPTS BALANCED INPUT. IT MAY APPEAR OVERWHELMING AT FIRST TO PUT A LOOP UP,BUT IF YOU RUN ONE AROUND YOUR PROPERTY,YOU SHOULD HAVE SOME GOOD LENGTH...MY LOOP IS ABT 375FT,SHORT FOR 160,BUT IT WERKS FB ON 160,THRU MY TUNER...YOU WILL ALSO FIND THE LOOP WILL WERK ON ALL/MOST BANDS RIGHT UP TO 6 METRES. THE HIGHER IN FREQUENCY YOU GO,THE MORE GAIN THE ANTENNA WILL GIVE YOU...MINE IS UP AT ABT 30FT,AND EVEN IF IT SHOULD BE HIGHER,IT WERKS GREAT FOR ME...ON 6 METRES,IT WERKS LIKE A BOMB...JUST FOOD FOR THOUGHT..GUD LUK...TIM....sk...

[Gary-N2ACX]

Thanks for the info Tim in TO,
    I can feel the bug to get an dedicated AM  rig here, one of the locals had his Apache on test just before he sold it at the hamfest, now I wish I'da bought it. But there's always one somewhere.  Take care and 73 Gary

[Jim, W5JO]

Gary, watch your rigs.  The Apache does not have 160.  The ones Tim mentioned do.  If you don't find one, then a solid state with an amp would do just fine.

[Vortex Joe - N3IBX]

Hello Gary,
              Good to hear from you again! Regarding an amp for your FT-857, the SB-200/220 doesn't have 160M, and a power supply rated for a duty cycle something on the order of 20 percent. You could use one on the higher bands, but would have to throttle the exciter back to something like 20 percent of PEP. One choice might be the Kenwood TL-922, or something else that has 160M like it. I believe the Drake L75/L7 also has 160M. There are a few of the older ones out there that have it, and shouldn't cost you an arm and a leg.

I like the advice others gave as well about going for a plate modulated rig that has 160M. A Heathkit DX-100, Johnson Valiant, or Viking I or II with the model 122 VFO would be good 100W class rigs. It's not totally necessary to get on the band with a high powered rig with 375W output, though it never hurts. I'm a firm believer in "Antennas by Eimac" - hi! Sometimes the cratic stashes on 160M are S9+40 during the Summertime. Sometimes you'll find a low noise floor and great local propogation. Don't give up on 160M just because it's the season for QRN. Last year there were good nights for local ragchewing up until July and then some.

Regarding your antenna, whatever you try, I would recommend going with 14 gage 450 ohm ladderline to keep your loses at a minimum. Just my opinion. There are plenty of good configurations and schools of thought on the subject. I also prefer double balanced and link coupled tuners to keep everything "balanced".

Hope to talk to you on teh band again soon and best regards!
Joe Cro N3IBX

[Gary-N2ACX]

   Jim,
    ur right, I talked to him on 75, 3.880 didn't realize it didn't have 160. thanks,
 Gary.
And another answer from Vertex  Joe...How are you?
  Thanks for that information also.......holy moly I better check alot before considering 160 hihi.
Was looking at a nice 220 also.
 That's what happens when one has never been on the 160 band.  I loved the DX-100 had friends that used them when they were new and the Viking I and II's and of course the Ranger's.
  Thanks again you guys and joe I will be meeting a couple guys on 1.997 but LSB around 1900  since they meet there at nights. I will work on getting  my information  for running AM down alot better, seems I have to brush up just a little, hihi
  My supply here btw is  an Astron 35A  should be plenty for continous duty at 40 or 50W.
Looks like I have some homework to do at any rate.
    Thanks to you all  here in AM Forum, I'm in the right place.
 73   Gary

[ve6pg]

..UR RIGHT JOE..TUNER IS IMPORTANT,YA YOU CAN GET AN SWR WITH CHEAP TUNERS,BUT THE BALUNS USUALLY CANT HANDLE IT,AND RIGHT YOU ARE,NOT LIKELY BALANCED...TIM...SK..

[flintstone mop]

Antenna, Antenna, Antenna
That is the big thing on 160M. I have worked fellow Hams with DX100's and there must have been something about ground conductivity, or their location on Earth. I ask about the antenna and the guy on the other end says, "it's nothing out of the ordinary", but getting legal limit helps AFTER you get established. You have to overcome more background noise on this band. Not every night is an S-2 noise floor!!
So, get what you can up there. Even 40 feet high is a good beginning. It will warm the clouds, but will give you a reach of a few hundred miles. The other guys probably mentioned a truly balanced tuner. I have 180 feet of wire up around 70 feet and the ends come down to two trees about 40 feet high, kind of a inverted VEE, the feed line is 450 ohm ladder line to the basement wall where the K1JJ tuner is mounted then a coax run to the shack.
Don't use a toy tuner with baluns that just turn into heaters. I did quite well on a small lot using, in a former QTH, and used the Unihat Vertical. 30 foot high element, but a little pricey. If you could describe your QTH, the size of the property, any trees around, etc, we might help you with more info. It sounds like you already have something up, but you want to make better??

Fred

[Gary-N2ACX]

    The property here isn't large and the back yard is the only place I can put up an antenna. It's size is just about 70' X 70'.  I have already had a  loop up, 70' each side which was resonate on 75 as well as 60M.
  My tuner is the MFJ898D, so it should be ok for using an amp if and when I get one.
  The antenna I have up at the present is something on the order of and end feed  inverted "L" using a 4:1 balun and is resonate from 160 thru 6 M with the exception of 60M where the SWR is about 3:1. These long wires and "L's" may be good but they radiate alot of nonsense as opposed to a balanced antenna.
  I may have to go back to a balanced antenna so the any interference may be lessoned in the immediate area, like answering machines etc, as I now come thru the phone. If I use anything with 450ohm ladder line I will use a 9:1 balun also.
  that's a small rundown of the property etc.

 Gary-N2ACX

[flintstone mop]

Hi Gary,
I was plagued with 'nonsense' when I lived on a small lot in the 90's. My vertical on 160M took care of RFI, and 40M was ok on the dipole cut for that band, but 80M was a no-no. Telephone filters worked for 40M. The usual length of the telephone drop to people's houses was about 65 feet. And we lived a comfortable 18 feet from each other. What a perfect way to get RF into a telephone.
The present location has the aerials 100 feet from any residence.
Some of the others here might have some help for your situation. I don't want to make any suggestions as they cost money.
I don't think the MFJ tuner will be happy with an AM carrier larger than 100 watts running through it. The 4:1 Balun will turn into a wasteful heater. Under SSB conditons you are not putting a 100% duty cycle into that Balun.
Fred

[Jim, W5JO]

There is a decision you must make, do you want local (100 to 300 miles) communication or do you want to work distance stations (over 300 miles).  Where you live there are a number of local stations.  Where I live there aren't so I go for distance as best I can.

For the distance stations you need as much vertical polarization as possible with good ground conductivity (or radials).  You also need a fair amount of power.  I have an inverted L with 44 vertical and ~125 horizontal fed with about 240 pf in series.  I do just fine out to about 1,000 miles with normal propagation.  If porpagation is good, it will do better.  A dipole of that height will not do well and the biggest consideration that MOP and other have mentioned, is do not use an internal balun to match the feedline and antenna.  Most of your effective radiation will be wasted in heat in the tuner.

The lower dipole antenna with a lot of power will not do much more than 100 watts, so scale your choice to what will do what you want.  160 is a great band with true gentlemen operating there.

[Gary-N2ACX]

You mean my MFJ989D full legal limit tuner won't handle over a 100W AM?  That wouldn't be too good for spending over $300 on this thing I wouldn't be a happy camper with MFJ or HRO  HIHI.
 Thanks for all these suggestions too. I will make notes and do some experimenting. Right now Iam on 1.997 talking to a couple of guys who meet here every night. The band rolls up and down zero to over S9  but is still before sundown. Gonna have to get used to this 160M propagation.

 Thanks again for the ideas.....I will stay tuned   

[ve6pg]

GARY...THESE TUNERS ARE A COMPROMISE,AT BEST...IF YOU REALLY WANT A GOOD TUNER,LOOK INTO THE FILES HERE FOR THE K1JJ TUNER..REALLY CANT BE BEAT...OPEN WIRE LINE IS THE BEST,AS YOUR MFJ WILL ONLY HEAT UP...SSB IS NOT A CONTINUOUS MODE...OFF/ON/OFF/ON...AM IS A CONSTANT CARRIER.AND YOU TUNER WILL LIKELY GET QUITE WARM/HOT WITH 100 WATTS OF CARRIER...YOU HAVE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE FOR INFO ON THIS STUFF..TIM....sk...

[KB2WIG]

Maybee you can salvage some of the "value" of the mfj tunaer.  I'd check into replacing the balun with a balun thats a little more robust.... Amodon Associates (sp?) sells balun stuff.... might be a nice summer project...   klc

[K1JJ]

Gary,

Here's the tuner thread some of the guys here are talking about. Lots of good info there.

http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=5931.0

Many of these balanced, link coupled tuners have been built. All you need is a single section tuning cap, a big coil and a small coil. Very simple design to match all bands and run QRO.

There's a hand drawn schematic in the thread.

73,
Tom, K1JJ

Here's the MopMan's version . Simple or what?

[K3ZS]

I have a 989C tuner from MFJ.  I use a 135 ft doublet with balanced line.  I noticed I was picking up RF crap from the house even though the antenna was about 160 ft from the house.  It ends up that the balun in this tuner is not very good.  It had poor balance on 40 and 80 meters and on 160 , you miight as well use a long wire.  I ended up getting a DX Engineering current balun made for use with tuners and high SWR's.  It is mounted external to the tuner and is rated 5KW continuous power.  This combination works good for 80-10 meters but the balance is not good on 160, especially using less than a half wave antenna.  For 160, I would use a real balanced tuner if you can't get up a full half wave dipole.  Depending on feed line length, and the end point impedance, you may need to use series balanced tuning rather than parallel as shown by K1JJ, if using a short antenna'

[WA1GFZ]

A balun at the feedline is the wrong end of the network. You want the balun at the coax side. Check out rick measures site for another configuration that works well.
Low Z just flip the l networks around, You will need a couple of matched inductors.

[Jim KF2SY]

Gary,
I also have a MFJ junk tuner the 989C.  I do not use the internal balun.  I use an
external coax current balun made from 25 ft. of coax wrapped around a form (coffee can,etc.)  It's connected at the tuner, no RFI in shack even with my homemade
OCF dipole.  (I have earth ground less than 6 ft. away and a counterpoise system)
No balun heating issues even @ 160m with DX 100.  No cores to saturate. That Rick Measures site is helpful as well as cebik.com site for more 160 antenna ideas.
Have fun along the way....

Jim KF2SY

[K1JJ]

Quote:
" I use an external coax current balun made from 25 ft. of coax wrapped around a form (coffee can,etc.)  "
---------------------


Yes, that works well.   

Hmmmm... but I'm wondering if a non-metalic form like PVC would be better than a steel?? coffee can as a coax balun form. The "Q" of the coil would be affected with metal. It's a low impedance ~500 ohm coax coil used at 50 ohms, but still, I would stay away from metal to be safe.

BTW, I use a coax RF choke balun coil wound on lightweight 4" ABS plastic pipe mounted right at the feedpoint of all my dipoles. This is a great method compared to simply making a hank of coax turns. The inter-turn capacitance is lower with a single layer coil. I use the ABS pipe as the center insulator for the antenna legs too. It is more critical from 40-10M to have a single layer coil, but might as well do it on all bands.

T
 

[K1JJ]

dipole.  Depending on feed line length, and the end point impedance, you may need to use series balanced tuning rather than parallel as shown by K1JJ, if using a short antenna'

Yes, you are correct.  Feeding a shortened very low impedance 1/4 wave dipole, like a 130' center fed on 160M, could be a problem for a parallel tuned tuner like this one. A series is better for this purpose, of course.

Though, many guys are able to get up a 260' centerfed and use it on all bands with no problems. Much depends on the feedline length and there may be some band/ feedline combos that have the taps in close to the center of the coil, looking for a low impedance tap. But, most guys have worked it out. For the best of all worlds, if someone has a 1/4 wave centerfed antenna, maybe a quick switch to series config would be in order.

T

[Jim, W5JO]

I might be good to mention that one should not use the foam coax for this.  It will distort and who knows what the impedance will be.

BTW, I use a coax RF choke balun coil wound on lightweight 4" ABS plastic pipe mounted right at the feedpoint of all my dipoles. This is a great method compared to simply making a hank of coax turns. The inter-turn capacitance is lower with a single layer coil. I use the ABS pipe as the center insulator for the antenna legs too. It is more critical from 40-10M to have a single layer coil, but might as well do it on all bands.

T
 

[Jim KF2SY]

Tom,
I just used it as a form, discarded it when wound, taped, tied, etc.   
 

[K1JJ]

OK, Jim/SY -

Yeah, I figured maybe that's what you did... :-)

The ABS form is helpful to keep the turns from bunching up in a free hank. If the two END coils touch, they can effectively deteriorate the coil's Q and in addition, arc over. I had that happen once on 40M where the two end turns were touching and actually started a fire and melted the coax..  Since then I've used a 4" plastic coil form to keep the turns perfectly in line and spaced.

Jim/JO -  Yep, good point -  that foam stuff, even though it is somewhat lower loss  can become soft when handling big power with swr and being in a sharp turn. I use RG-213 for all flex coax here. It has the hard clear polystyrene? or whatever insulation.

Later -

T

[Gary-N2ACX]

   Again I would like to thank all you guys for responding to this topic. I can refer to alot of the replies and appreciate the suggestions.
    I also had made up a while ago two great coax current baluns that I use. One was used in my first attice antenna which reduce alot of interference in the house including the alarm system. The second one I use on the outside antenna, the inverted "L" now and it eliminates alot of nonsense.
  It was made from a 3 litre soda bottle wrapped also using about 25' of RG-58 with connectors then sealed it. see the picture, hope it uploads. They do work very well.

73 N2ACX