160 meter dipole.

[pkveazey]

I checked my 160 meter dipole with my new toy(Antenna Analyzer) and it showed up as being resonant at 2.1 Mhz. Say what??? OK, I went out and added about 5 or 6 feet more wire to it. Now its resonant at 1.848 Mhz. Now when I hit the auto-tune button, it tunes real quick. 

[Kbop]

 

[JohnyMac]

PK, I know this is a personal question...Burt how LONG is your 160-m dipole? 

I have an inverted "L" that is 202' long.

[pkveazey]

As best I recall, I cut it 130' per leg and then, because I'm an idiot, I listened to a Ham friend and made it 125' on the hot leg. Now its back to something around 131' on the hot leg. I'm pretty sure the ground leg is around 130'. The whole thing is about 260 foot-ish. The feed point is up about 30 feet and horizontal but in an L shape. Hot leg is pointed West South West and the ground leg is pointed South South East. It seems to talk and hear in all directions equally well. The low mounting height and  L shape lowers the impedance down a bit from 75 Ohms. It should be a little above 52 Ohms.

[JohnyMac]

Thank you sir!

I have the space and trees to up a ~525' of wire in a rectangular configuration around the cabin. I just need an extra set of hands to do this. In theory, this should give me all bands using a tuner. The antenna would be up around 90' and it would slant slightly, maybe 5% to the south due to the height of the trees to be used and the slant of the land. I would probably start with a 100' piece of 450Ω, ladder line that would go to a 1:1 balun.

Thoughts?

[pkveazey]

Thank you sir!

I have the space and trees to up a ~525' of wire in a rectangular configuration around the cabin. I just need an extra set of hands to do this. In theory, this should give me all bands using a tuner. The antenna would be up around 90' and it would slant slightly, maybe 5% to the south due to the height of the trees to be used and the slant of the land. I would probably start with a 100' piece of 450Ω, ladder line that would go to a 1:1 balun.

Thoughts?

The full wave loop on 160 should be great. Although Ladder line is almost lossless I hate ladder line because its so finicky to deal with and snow and ice bugger things up. In order to use a 1:1 Balun with ladder line, you're going to have to cut that ladder line to the perfect length. Putting that loop up 90 feet is great. If I ever decide to build another 160 antenna, it will be a full wave loop fed with coax. About 40 feet up is the max I can do because my tower is only 40 feet tall. Keep us informed when you get it up and we can get on HF and you can get a bunch of signal reports. I have a Ham buddy who has a full wave 160 meter loop and he says it works good and is quiet as far as background static is concerned.

[patriotman]

Thank you sir!

I have the space and trees to up a ~525' of wire in a rectangular configuration around the cabin. I just need an extra set of hands to do this. In theory, this should give me all bands using a tuner. The antenna would be up around 90' and it would slant slightly, maybe 5% to the south due to the height of the trees to be used and the slant of the land. I would probably start with a 100' piece of 450Ω, ladder line that would go to a 1:1 balun.

Thoughts?

I think I heard my name called 

[JohnyMac]

@ Patriotman...

[patriotman]

@ Patriotman...

I can probably squeeze a visit in sometime after the NJ class (so like mid February). Then we can get it done as long as the weather cooperates.

[JohnyMac]

Let's chat next week. 

[patriotman]

Roger that El Capitan