William, Come join the fun at 160 and it is not all that daunting to get on the air. I use an Inverted-L antenna that is 130 feet long...about 60 foot up the tower and then 70 feet to a tree. The horizontal leg is sloping down quite a bit and it works well. Now, I am not working DX on the first call, but I've done plenty of damage with the antenna in 160 meter contest state-side. Although it is called an Inverted-L...and 130 foot length of wire is going to tune somewhere with a little ham radio engineering. The thing you need is a counterpoise or radials on the ground. The more the better (to a point). I have 17 radials...random length that fits on my city lot...in a half-moon because my house is on the lot and I have not taken the time to snake radials under the house and around the basement. The K2/100 along with the KAT100 loads grand into the wire. I work many, many stations on 160 meters. The K2 is very HOT on 160. The Inverted-L could be a long-wire too...just a hunk of wire 130 feet long or so fed against a counterpoise or a good ground. IT does not have to be in a straight line either. The KAT100 at the QRP version of the tuner is an LC Network which will load just about anything...even your rain guttlers (not plastic ones though). Any antenna you get on 160 (except for the big ones) will have limited bandwidth, but that is OK. Use the tuner. It won't be ideal, but heck, ham radio is full of trade-offs. If you can't get the 130 feet out in the yard, you might try to add a lump inductance at the end of the wire with about 10 feet after the inductor. The inductor could be say 2 feet long made out of 2" PVC pipe with #12 wire wrapped around out...the taped. It is not an exact science but it works. With the inductor, the bandwidth gets real slim. I've been on 160 by feeding the coax shield on my 80 meter dipole...using the feedline shield as a radiator and one leg of the 80 meter dipole. If you have a tower with a beam on it....use a gamma match wire connected to the top of the tower on a 3 foot arm...and a small variable capacitor at the bottom. I've ran 100 watts using this configuration and the capacitor was a ganged 365 pf BC capacitor. You just have to tune the capacitor for the part of the band you want to work. These are just a few ways I've gotten on 160 meters. As far as the K2 is concerned, fantasstic on 160, The KAT100 tuner or the QRP tuner is also fantastic on the band too. I've used the 130 foot Inverted-L (long wire) on 80, 40 and 30 meters too with great success with the KAT 100. Have fun...and get on Top Band. It is pretty poor conditions in the summer, but you will be surprised in the fall and winter what you can do with simple antennas on 160 meters. Plan now. I always work on the 160 meter antenna when it is very cold outside. Try not to do that. 73 Lee - K0WA
Common sense is in short supply - get some and use it. If you can't find any common sense, ask for help from somebody that has some common sense. - Lee Buller _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
