HF 6-160 VERTICAL antenna best price??

[Captainlee]

I would like to buy a 6-160 M VERTICAL antenna to put on a base station pole probably 20 ft in the air. any good deals out their. I can make a base mount.

I have an antenna tuner mjb. Thanks for looking....

 

[Robb]

Don't know much about this antenna, but it has gotten a few decent reviews on eHam:

http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/9968

Alpha Antenna for HF, VHF, & UHF Communications

 

[dxhound]

The problem with verticals is having enough space for the radial field. You want at least a 1/4 wavelength radial field on the lowest freq operated. So on 160meters, you will need a radial field that stretches out 131 feet in all directions from the base of the vertical element.

Thats alot of area. Now if you are limited on space, The gap Titan is designed to not use a radial field as it has a built in counter poise to minimize ground losses and uses a capacitor to help "tune" the antenna for the lower bands. You wont get 160(without a tuner) but they get decent reviews. A g5rv is a decent antenna for 10-160 and can be configured inverted V for vertical polorization.

 

[W5LZ]

Here comes that 'rain' that always seems to crop up...
All of the antennas mentioned will 'work' on 160 meters with some effort but they will not work well, they are compromises. How 'well' they work depends on how you are doing the measuring . If it's only by how well they can be impedance matched, then they'll probably work just dandy. If you are going by the size/shape of their radiation patterns then expect them to have less than 'average'/normal/adequate performance. Sorry, that's just how it is.
160 meters is a difficult band to work, it requires a large antenna. There are no 'miracle' antennas.
- 'Doc

And just to clear up a misconception, and inverted 'V' antenna is not vertically polarized.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Doc is right, there is no substitute on 160m for size. 160m is a hard band to do anything with for an effective antenna because very few of us can put an antenna up a 150 feet in the air so we are constrained to using the best that we can. The longest wire strung up the highest you can get it will usually still far outperform any on the multiband verticals on the market.

Speaking of multiband verticals, none of them will operate over the entire 160m or even the 80m bands BTW. Most will not operate over the entire 40m band either. You have to pick what segment of the band you want to operate on the tune the antenna for that part of the band. Running those antennas far outside their range is not really recommended as they tend to smoke the traps and tuning stubs especially with high power.

 

[Captainlee]

WOW Thanks for the best information you guys have that gives me food for thought or
bands for thought.. he he,,,,,,Thanks again best group on the internet

 

[dxhound]

Here comes that 'rain' that always seems to crop up...
All of the antennas mentioned will 'work' on 160 meters with some effort but they will not work well, they are compromises. How 'well' they work depends on how you are doing the measuring . If it's only by how well they can be impedance matched, then they'll probably work just dandy. If you are going by the size/shape of their radiation patterns then expect them to have less than 'average'/normal/adequate performance. Sorry, that's just how it is.
160 meters is a difficult band to work, it requires a large antenna. There are no 'miracle' antennas.
- 'Doc

And just to clear up a misconception, and inverted 'V' antenna is not vertically polarized.

W5LZ I understand why people argue the polarization of an inverted V, But fact is, the antenna is vertically polarized, But not omni directional. It presents lobes off the broad sides of the antenna. Here is a decent read on the subject

Radio Antenna Engineering - Traveling-wave Antenna for Vertically Polarized Transmission

Think of a cubical quad antenna. For vertical polarization, the antenna must be fed on the side of the diamond. that creates an upside down V(inverted V) ^ and a standard V. Typically the center conductor would be fed to the inverted V (^) and the ground would feed the V portion. This causes the phases to cancel out at the opposite point of the feed and you get an inverted V.

A wire inverted V does the same thing but it is a half of the quad on it side. And because there is no DC connection between the ground and driven element, the earth ground and mutual inductance between the legs makes up the rest. That is one reason there are optimal degrees of angle on the legs of inverted Vs depending on freq. But for our purposes and since we use tuners, its not a big deal and we accept some loss in gain/performance for multi band ops.

 

[RatsoW8]

From my experience all multi band vertivcals perform poorly at best. However, I did have good results experimenting with single band verts.

I would only use a vertical for 20m. All other bands I use dipoles. If you have the space of course. If you can only go up, want to use multiple bands and not too picky about performance then I'd go with a Hustler verticals. Ground mounted with a radial field. Forget about 160 unless yo ucan putup a serious wire antenna.

Hustler Amateur Base HF Verticals 1/4 Wave Trap Vertical 4 5 6 BTV

 

[dxhound]

http://www.ad4dx.com/pdf/basic-antennas.pdf

Just found this site while looking at quad antennas, VERY GOOD READ

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

W5LZ I understand why people argue the polarization of an inverted V, But fact is, the antenna is vertically polarized, But not omni directional. It presents lobes off the broad sides of the antenna. Here is a decent read on the subject

Radio Antenna Engineering - Traveling-wave Antenna for Vertically Polarized Transmission

Think of a cubical quad antenna. For vertical polarization, the antenna must be fed on the side of the diamond. that creates an upside down V(inverted V) ^ and a standard V. Typically the center conductor would be fed to the inverted V (^) and the ground would feed the V portion. This causes the phases to cancel out at the opposite point of the feed and you get an inverted V.

A wire inverted V does the same thing but it is a half of the quad on it side. And because there is no DC connection between the ground and driven element, the earth ground and mutual inductance between the legs makes up the rest. That is one reason there are optimal degrees of angle on the legs of inverted Vs depending on freq. But for our purposes and since we use tuners, its not a big deal and we accept some loss in gain/performance for multi band ops.

That antenna in the link is not what is generally referred too as an inverted VEE. What Doc is calling an inverted VEE is what 99% of us do, a simple dipole fed in the centre with the legs sloping down to the ground. The antenna you reference is also called an inverted VEE in the article but it is not centre fed. It is like half of a rhombic turned on it's side. Even a true VEE antenna is centre fed and horizontal polarized.

Inverted VEE antenna:

Martin E. Meserve - K7MEM - Inverted V Antenna Design



Rhombic inverted VEE antenna. Note the difference in feedpoints.

http://www.qsl.net/va3iul/Antenna/Wire Antennas for Ham Radio/43-Rhombic inverted-vee antenna.jpg

 

[W5LZ]

I do have to agree about the radiation pattern's shape, sort of. It's not really omnidirectional but more of an oval -if- the thing has enough height above ground. Most of the inverted 'V's aren't very directional at all because they are much too close to ground. For that matter, most 'flat top' dipoles not at more than a 1/2 wave length above ground are only 'sort of' directional, more an 'oval' pattern than anything. A VERY rough rule of thumb is that if a dipole isn't at least it's own length above ground it isn't directional enough to be called directional. For a 1/2 wave dipole to be really directional it's going to be more than a full wave length above ground. Lots of factors enter into that so it isn't 'gospel' by any means.
- 'Doc

 

[dxhound]

Ok, I must admit, This discussion has had me doing some research......Gotta love ham radio!!!!

The following is a quote from the ARRL antenna hand book, and is sited on several sites around the net.

"As the included angle of the inverted vee becomes smaller the two radiators interfere progressively more strongly with each other with the effect that the input impedance is reduced. The optimum angle in the vicinity of 90° to 120° provides an antenna impedance of about 50 ohms. The resonant frequency is slightly affected by additional end capacitance to ground so some pruning is required on installation. The sloping radiators produce some vertically polarized signal making the inverted vee a good performer on the low frequency bands for long distance work. The antenna is usually fed with 50 ohm coaxial cable and a 1:1 balun is recommended."

That being said, I have also read from several credible sources, that when a dipole is "lazy" and then ends slope toward ground but not enough to interact with ground and move the bulk of the current toward the feed point, the antenna remains horizontally polarized. However, as freq increases and the angle of the legs increases(not to go any greater than 90 deg at the apex) the antenna transitions to vertically polarized.

So the operating freq does play a large part in this discussion. 80-160 meters the angle of incidence will be more vertical but largely horizontally polarized(unless you could get the antenna one wavelength above the ground)

However the higher in freq we go, say 40m through 2m, the ground plays less of a role and the angle of incidence begins to stretch toward the horizon and the antennas E field begins to go vertical and the M field horizontal.

Getting back to the radiation patern, Yeah, I wasnt too clear on that. The antenna is again affected by the operating freq. the lower in freq, the more omni the antenna is. Again, 40m is where things begin to change and it begins to develop lobes to the side.

W5LZ, you hit the nail on the head...Nothin is gospel in antennas.....hell, the moisture content in soil can cause the same antenna to change in some ways.

 

[Justme]

Using an inverted L,77 feet high, and some 85 feet sloping down from 77 feet to 40 feet above ground, fed at the bottom by a MFJ 998 autotuner working 160 - 10 if need be, but the best it works from 160 - 20, add a OCF antenna at 45 feet above ground for 160 - 10 and an vertical for 18 mHz and up to 10.

The radial field consists of 3000 feet of copper wire, make sure if you don't have the real estate for radials in the ground to take care at the bottom of the L to really cover the ground with radials as long you can make them, or cover the ground in chicken wire.
Or use 4 radials 1/4 wave above ground.
Radials in the ground are detuned anyway so just get in as much and in anyway you can.
I work USA Canada Eurasia regularly on 160 running 500 watts from the SB-1000 loafing along at that setting.

All from the Netherlands here.
On 80/40/20 it performs quite well, on 80 it beats the OCF on the longer distances like Japan with on average 2 - 3 S points.
40 and 20 have a bit less difference, but i can switch over in a second to see what antenna delivers the best results at that time and distance depending the propagation.

Read up on ON4UN book, Low band dxing.
The 77 foot vertical is made of special aluminium tubing startingat the base of 3 1/4 inch tapering off to 1 1/4 inch guyed.
The alu is made of the same stuff Titanex uses it holds some titanium, making the tubing lots stronger as normal alu tubing.

Costs were 250 euro for the tubing and 120 euro for the 4 mm guywires made of aramide capable of holding 580 kilo's or 1100 pounds.

 

[M0GVZ]

Using an inverted L,77 feet high, and some 85 feet sloping down from 77 feet to 40 feet above ground, fed at the bottom by a MFJ 998 autotuner working 160 - 10 if need be, but the best it works from 160 - 20,

Likewise I use an inverted L. 25ft vertical, 50ft horizontal tune with a SGC230 on 80-10m. About 500ft of wire in the ground.

I run no more than 100W.

Because of the low height of the horizontal section, on 80-30 its almost NVIS - Ok up to around 1500 miles or so with 40 reaching Stateside on a good day. 20-10m is a completely different story though and it works well on those bands. In just over a year operating every now and again I've got my DXCC. I also do a bit of contesting and have four first in country certificates for CQ-WW and CW-WPX on phone and data, first in country for the 2011 ARRL DX SSB contest and I have a first in world in class for the 2011 CQ-WPX-RTTY contest. Only place I struggle to work is Oceania because you need a seriously low take off angle from the UK and also because of the orientation of my antenna, Oceania is in a null. VK thankfully is where a lobe is on most bands.