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Old 10th Sep 2019, 5:40 pm   #11
G6Tanuki
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Wiltshire, UK.
Posts: 14,007
Default Re: Antenna recommendation for 40 and 80M bands

For me the important thing is the physical layout of the site: dipoles are OK if your shack is in the middle of your plot, if your shack is at one end then a dipole implies a long length of feeder. My shack is at one end of the site so I've got a 100-ish-foot end-fed longwire here, along with an old 1960s Redifon ATU.

As an earth I've got my "extended fence-spike network" as described here:

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/....php?p=1092363

The longwire is about 20 feet above ground, and works surprisingly well both for throughout-Europe working (ot also covers 60Metres - and I regularly work Iceland with 30 Watts from my PRC320 on that band) and also during the dark-hours of the winter months I can work into Canada/Eastern-US on 80Metres with 100 Watts.

Height is less important than you may have been led to believe - indeed, an antenna that's only 0.1-wavelength above ground is precisely what you need for "NVIS" communication over a few hundred miles.

I like my "Cloudwarmer"!
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