I recently took down a monster beam. Its performance was not much
better than my collection of dipoles - mainly due to its low height of
25 feet. It was mounted on a short tower on top of my one-story
garage. I couldn't leave that short tower empty for the winter. I have
built and used many ground-mounted verticals. Never with any
satisfactory performance. I built a full-size 20 meter vertical and
mounted it on the mast where the beam had been. I attached 4
quarter-wave radials spaced evenly at 90 degrees. When I checked it
with my MFJ 259 I was delighted to find full-band coverage with an SWR
below 1.5:1 or less. After an hour or so of tuning around and comparing
signals to my 3-band trap dipole, it was clear that the new vertical was
working extremely well. Low-angle signals were clearly stronger on the
vertical and overall performance was at least as good as the dipole. An
elevated vertical seems to be vastly better than a ground-mounted
vertical - my last one had 32 radials and was still not very good. But
maybe with a 120 radials like Ron's and a ground-mounted vertical starts
to perform.
72, Doug -- KØDXV
Craig D. Smith wrote:
Congratulations, Ron, on the South Cook Islands! Still on my "to get"
list.
Yes, ground mounted with lots of radials works well. But for those
intimidated with all the space and trenching needed for the radials, there
is an easy option - raise the vertical and use a counterpoise wire. I also
worked 40 meter DX this morning. Worked EH1YAQ in Spain from Colorado with
my K2 at 10W with a BuddiPole vertical. Have the feedpoint raised up on a
pole at 10 ft and used a single 32 ft counterpoise wire with the far end on
a stake about 3 ft above the ground. This arrangement has been working well
for me, and is easy and quick to set up on a portable basis.
Keep up the good DX!!
73
.... Craig AC0DS
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