Different people have differing views on the definition of a serious antenna.
An 8 circle with 8 directions of BSEF verticals would definitely be serious. If you wanted one tower and didn’t want to do the work to install a minimum of 100 radials or more I would consider one tall tower with elevated radials. The best antenna I ever had in Arkansas was 192 feet of 25G which I put up in 1980. This tower was shunt fed with the feed point at 60 feet and had 9 radials (3 per leg) taking up several acres with the ends pretty high. Nobody had a four square back then so competition was not as great, but it was a great performer. I think it was better than most serious antennas at the time which would be quarter wave verticals with extensive, on ground, radial systems. That antenna for transmit and a half dozen thousand foot Beverages would be a serious 160m setup even today. 73… Stan, K5GO Sent from my iPhone > On Mar 24, 2022, at 10:34 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > Hi Dino, > > I started with a single 1/4 wave vertical as Tree notes and it worked > extremely well for years, however after a period of time I had a desire to > upgrade the single vertical to a system that offered some gain on TX. I came > across the array that Tim, K3LR, mentioned in "Low Band DX'ing" that > describes his systems and discovered I could build this array around the > existing 1/4 wave vertical and achieve 4-square performance in a smaller > footprint area. I have now used the array for four years and the performance > has been outstanding. After reading the info regarding this array in Low Band > DX'ing I documented some additional details of my experience that were > presented at the Dayton Antenna Forum and also published in the National > Contest Journal. Copies of those documents can be found here: > > https://www.kkn.net/dayton2018/2018_Dayton_Antenna_Forum-160_meter_TX_Array.pdf > > https://ncjweb.com/features/sepoct18feat.pdf > > As Tree notes, the very first step is to determine exactly what your > objective is. The five element parasitic array has met my objectives for both > contest and DX activities. > > 73 Joel W5ZN > > >> On 2022-03-23 22:38, Dino Darling wrote: >> If you may and you are willing to indulge me; if you were about to buy >> 5-acres with no neighbors or restrictions and wanted to erect a >> serious 160M antenna system, what would you build and why? We can pass >> on the Radio Arcala discussion; nobody's that cool. >> A loaded 4-square? 1/4 wave stick (or longer)? Phased dipoles? (fill >> in the blank)? >> I've seen a 200' tower with three phased dipoles tilted on end. The >> end of one side of the dipole was anchored and insulated at the top of >> the tower and came down like guy cables. About half way down was the >> feedpoint, were an isolated anchor cable continued down the same path >> to ground (like a guy cable). However, the second half of the dipole >> was pulled back to the base of the tower, from the center feedpoint >> insulator. It looked like an arrowboard chevron or a regular dipole >> that was turned 90 degrees on its side. The coax was horizontal back >> to the tower. There were three of these spaced 120 degrees apart and >> fed with a phasing network to steer it. I understand it works great. >> So what would you build? >> Dino - KX6D >> _________________ >> Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector > _________________ > Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
