Let me say this about that.
Any / all mobile 80 meter antennas are unbelievably inefficient. Something on the order of 'single digit' percentages (1 - 8% on the average). Same for most all bands till you get to about 20 meters, sort of, and the efficiency starts being half-way reasonable. It has to do with the 'size' of the antenna.
For instance. A 4 foot loaded CB antenna is about 0.50% of a full 1/4 wave length (rough estimate, too lazy to figure it exactly). I don't think it would be an unfair statement that a 4 foot mobile antenna just isn't gonna perform like a 9 foot one, right? Okay, an 11 foot 80 meter mobile antenna is something like 0.18 % of a full 80 meter 1/4 wave length (+/- 61 feet). I'm using a mobile an 80 meter mobile antenna length that's almost reasonable, sort of, and definitely not that of a Ham stick! So comparitavely, a very big 80 meter mobile antenna is almost like using a 2 foot CB antenna, as far as efficiency goes (actually less, but who'z counting). Huh, sounds about as 'tasty' as liver gello, doesn't it? Oh well. The 'catch' is that a very inefficient antenna will work better than no antenna, almost every time. Just don't expect setting records with it, sort of. A Ham stick is less efficient than that 11 foot thingy (Texas BugCatcher), but you don't find many attics that would allow turning a 22 foot antenna, you know?
No matter who says what about it, the losses are greater on lower frequencies than higher frequencies as far as the relative size of ~practical~ mobile antennas go. The exact opposite is true for coax, in general. But even at VHF RG-58 isn't ~that~ bad for shorter distances. Not as good as 'large' coax, but not that bad (shorter distances, remember!). Of course there's some loss, but most times it just isn't worth worrying about. RG-58 is certainly usable on HF as long as you stay somewhere around 100 - 150 feet or so, and the power level is half-way 'normal'.
And lastly. SWR is probably the absolute worst way of measuring efficiency possible. A dumby load has very nice SWR but is terrible as an antenna. But it's still better than no antenna at all. Think about it.
I'm sort of suprised that there's almost a Mhz of usable frequency range on 80 meters. Can't say it's impossible, but it is suprising. If it was my setup and I saw that, I really doubt if I'd change anything unless I could put it back exactly like it was! If it is an exception that just happens to work that well, don't mess with it!
SonWatcher, just out of curiosity, can you turn it?
- 'Doc
