This is a bit late to the subject but I have a 160/80 vertical with 3 dual-use wires as both top guys and loading elements. Seeking a better signal on 160, my 80 meter Inverted L (an old TT posting) was converted by extending the telescoping Al tubes (6') vertical portion to 17.5 meters and replacing the horizontal-ish upper wire with 3 loading wires that are 17.2 meters long coming down from the top at about 45 degrees off vertical.They are supported at 3 equally spaced angles around the center vertical and act as top guys. One DX benefit of the symmetrical top loading wires is there is a null in the radiation pattern straight up.Non-conducting guys at two lower levels are used as well.The original six 80m elevated radials were 17m long at 3m height.Two of these in opposite directions were extended to 39.9m for 160 and elevated more to about 5m.The radials begin at the base at 0.5m then up at a 45deg angle to the first radial support at 5m. The MFJ-based raw impedance at 1.825 MHz is ~ 8-j12 which can be pretty well matched with a "hairpin" inductance coil of about XL of +j18 ohms across the input, giving SWR<3 over about 40 kHz.Getting a good match required fiddling with the radial and top loading wire lengths to fit with the limited raw impedance range of hairpin matching. On 80 meters CW the resistance is about 100 ohms and the raw large inductive reactance is tuning out with a series capacitor.Currently manual switching between 160 and 80 at the base is required to select the appropriate simple matching network.On 160 this antenna seems somewhat better than average collecting 30+ new countries this season so far, including several of the stronger Europeans from here on the west coast on good nights. It still seems okay on 80 but the input resistance rises noticably with frequency so it is a poor match on 75.With more fiddling that probably could be improved.
Bill, N6MW _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
