I have been on 160 since 1988. It has never been a strong presence because I was never really able to hear well on my long and narrow, 1 acre city lot. Last year I went to a shunt feed on my 100 foot 45G tower. It is festooned with monobanders from 80 to 10 meters. The match is an Omega match with 2000 pfd in series and 1000 pfd to ground (both vacuum variables of course). I have 32 radials at the base & all soldered to a solid copper bus of #04 wire that is clamped to the tower using stainless hardware. It works very well. The 2000 pfd was necessary as the shunt wire cage is only 30 feet in height due to monobanders down to 30 feet. It gets out quite well.
Last year I went to the Hi-Z antennas Triangle array (3 phased verticals) and I began to hear like I've never heard before. My previous Ewe's, low dipoles, short beverages, K9AY loops, etc. really did not hear that well by comparison. I had to have the land cleared down the hill beyond the creek so I would be over 100 feet away from the shunt fed tower. One falling tree smoked one of the verticals and a huge March lightening strike smoked all of the electronics. During August I upgraded to a Hi-Z 4-square array (after more brush clearing, etc.). I tried to use the old RG-6/U feed but it had been smoked by lightening, too!! Now the 4-square is up es running and I have arrived at the promised land relative to low band receiving. I can hear stuff I NEVER could here before. The RDF on this antenna is equivalent to 1000 foot beverages, and it is electrically steerable in 4 directions..... 73, John, W4NU K4JAG, 1959 to 1998 _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
