The most important part of an inverted L is the counterpoise, be it raised radials, buried or on-ground radials or an FCP. Be sure you can do a counterpoise well. Otherwise the counterpoise can be a huge RF loss, easily negating anything done well with the L wire itself.
Next the vertical part of the wire is most important. 80 feet up will do very well, and will carry the large majority of total RF current density. The horizontal will fill in the hole in the doughnut pattern of a vertical, but more useful, you can use its length to help tune the antenna. Adding or taking away from the far end of the horizontal can be a very useful tuning device. The shape, slope, "straightness" of the "horizontal" are fairly immaterial. Dropping down at 45 degrees will produce a lower feed Z and a narrower bandwidth than the same pulled away parallel to the ground. The pattern of an L always has a mild to moderate weakness in the otherwise omnidirectional pattern, in the direction that the horizontal pulls away from the bend in the L. In the Southeast US, you want the horizontal wire of an L to pull away toward the SE, so the weak quadrant is not to the SW, W, NW, N or NE. 73, Guy K2AV On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 4:55 PM, Art Snapper <[email protected]> wrote: > I have been looking at locations on my property to install an Inverted L > for 160. > > How important is it for the top part to be led away at a right angle? > > I was considering running it vertically 80ft, then about 25 feet at a 45 > degree up angle and 25 feet at a 45 degree down angle, over the top of the > supporting tree. > > de Art NK8X > _________________ > Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband > _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
