Minimum VSWR and resonant frequency are seldom the same thing. You need an antenna analyzer to see where the reactance is zero and what remains will be the R and the true resonant frequency.
Carl KM1H ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Carper" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2011 6:52 PM Subject: Re: Topband: New entry to TopBand with antenna question > With everyone's advice, I thought I'd send a quick note to thank everyone > and let you know what I ended up doing. > > I put a 160m inverted-L together. > > I have 130' piece of 10-gauge wire up. Probably 80' goes straight up... > the balance horizontal. I started off with four 14-gauge radials, also > 130' are laid on the ground.. There is no ground rod at the base. I used > a dipole center insulator, placed on a wooden stake... radials terminate > at > bottom... driven element on topic. The SWR dips to 1.2:1 at 1795 Mhz. > It's 1.4:1 at 1830 Mhz. I'm thinking of taking a foot off of it to raise > the resonant frequency up above 1800 Mhz. > > But it looks really good so far. > > Thanks for the advice all. > > Mike, WA9PIE > > > > On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 11:06 PM, Michael G. Carper <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Hey folks. >> >> >> >> I've been a ham for 37 years, but I've spent my entire ham "career" on >> 80-10m (with the exception of 7 countries worked on 160m about ten years >> ago). For the most part, the same obstacle has kept me off TopBand that >> prevents most - antenna space. >> >> >> >> Now that I've made DXCC on all bands 80-10m (and very close on 6m). and >> since we've recently moved to a place with 7-acres and a nice tall >> tree-line, I figure my options for 160m are better. That said - we're >> leasing this place and I've probably got 2-years here. >> >> >> >> My goal is simple - make DXCC on 160m within the next 2 years. >> >> >> >> So I'm looking for some advice about the antenna. >> >> >> >> I'm very tempted to buy a B&W folded dipole and call it done. but I'm >> curious about what others are doing. I've got an amplifier, but no >> high-power tuner. So I want to avoid a tuner - the folded dipole seems >> to >> get me there and I can put it up at 70' or so in the elm trees. >> >> >> >> Thoughts? >> >> >> >> Mike, WA9PIE >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK >> > _______________________________________________ > UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK > > > ----- > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 10.0.1411 / Virus Database: 2092/4014 - Release Date: 11/13/11 > _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
