Hello to All Have been following this closely and felt compelled to finally post my findings of almost 7 years. First I live in the country on a farm about 7 miles from a small town in SW, MO. so I have the space and relatively noise area free except for (electric fencing & some power lines). I have 3 major antennas that I use for HF use, have others but these are the main ones a 6-160m 270" OCFD mounted at 55', a Hi-Gain Hy-Tower 10-80m with a 17m kit and the 160m top mounted kit with 60 ground mounted radials from 120' to 25' in length (looks like spokes on a wagon wheel). This vertical has about 190' of coax buried going to it from the shack closed than I wanted but that was I ended up with. The last is a Mosley Pro-67-C3 10-40m (10/12/15/17/30/40m) mounted at 65'. I also have several receiving only antennas but don't use them much it seems.
I'm going to document one band for this post instead of jumping around which I could but makes it harder to see results. I mainly work DX QRP to QRO and have compared my Mosley Pro 67 to the Hi Tower hundreds of times in all kinds of conditions. The Mosley has 3 elements on 40m and an excellent performer there and I use it and the Vertical as my main go to antennas for 40m. When they are paired up with my K3 I have very little loss or fading 80-90% of the time. I have found in about 60-80% (a guess-a-ment at best I admit) of the time the signal strength between these two are about equal or very close. We all know how these vary and my checks are made using a button either on my Alpha 9500 or a Bird 74 switch. On 80m this antenna is a real dream for sure it did much better than a 1/4wl dipole I did have that it came down almost as soon as it went up. The 270' OCFD does not do well against it either in fact if not for the vertical 80m DXCC would never come for me period. Most all of the contacts noted were QRO for the most part on all antennas. QRP contacts were all made using my KX3 and decided that I was going to work my DXCC using only the Vertical. In 19mo. with a 4mo.(health & lighting damage) layoff so far have confirmed 89 entities, I know not that many but I have fun anyway. One other thing I enjoy off roading but health issues has stopped my walking very far so I have a Jeep setup for off road use to get (close to the top) for SOTA activations without driving all the way. There again I use my KX3 and Vertical it is a 31' fiberglass telescoping pole and 31' counterpoise. This antenna deploys quickly and Easley and I find it to be a good performer for a portable one. Using the internal tuner on the KX3 it will tune 10-40m very well with a 1-1 VSWR. This is not a true statement for all contacts made but a high enough percentage that it got my attention several years back along with a few club members and friends. In fact one good friend ended up with one also after seeing what would do. I must admit the Hi-Tower is very best vertical made and has been for a long time and not everyone can erect one to the proper spec it requires, but if you can it will deliver for you. That does mean using the 6 8' ground rods it calls for also. The night I installed mine all it had was the ground rods driven and connected to the tower base no radials period, I guess you could say the coax was a counterpoise. But went inside and hooked the antenna up to my then FTDX-5000MP and tuned to 80m just to see what I could hear, the first thing that jumped out was a ZL with 59 signal decided to answer with 200w from the radio 1st try and a QSO. That's enough of a rant on verticals I guess. 73, Fred/N0AZZ K3 Ser # 6730--KX3 # 5210--K2/100 # 6470-KAT100 P3/SVGA--KAT500--W2 Amps Elecraft KPA500 HF/6m--Alpha's 9500 HF--87A HF--Mirage B-5030-G 300+w--(2) B-5016-G's 165w 2m -----Original Message----- From: Elecraft [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Doug Turnbull Sent: Friday, September 12, 2014 3:38 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Subject: Re: Verticals Friends, It seems to me that verticals get a bad rap because most people who use them are space restricted therefore the vertical is close to structures and there is no room for any radial system. The counterpoise may be no more than the pipe hammered into the ground which supports the vertical. Of course this is a dummy load. One I used as KN4WQZ and despite all managed to make QSOs - better to be on the air. Place a vertical in the clear with a proper ground radial system and it will work and work well perhaps doing better for distance stations than close in stations. I have a BigIR vertical from Stepper and it works a treat against 120 55 to 60 foot radials lain on top of the ground. Yes the SteppIR trombone dipole at 24M or 80 feet is an S unit better for one skip stations but when listening to VK the difference is smaller. My vertical is in a wood and would probably do better if it were fully in the clear. I have no doubt that ground planes which are by their nature more in the clear are probably going to perform better than a ground mounted vertical. It is not practical to always mount the vertical in a raised position. I wonder if a vertical which is ground mounted against the optimal radial system is not just as effective a performer as a ground plane. Bottom line is verticals can be mounted in a small space. They are not very expensive and even with a modest radial system they can perform pretty well. As others have stated not everyone is able to have a Yagi. Most of my non-USA QSOs are with stations running 100 Watts into a vertical, ground plane, trap dipole or inverted v. Seldom are these antennas high unless atop an apartment building in UA land. There is much to be said for the simple approach to our hobby though I am a sinner. 73 Doug EI2CN ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected] ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
