The best thing I ever did for Topband receiving was to lay out a 220 foot wire
on the ground pointed NE to Europe. I then put one down for 480 feet due West.
Switching from one to the other was dramatic. Because I could just hear
stations to the south but not copy them I put up a short conventio
When using a gamma match you are usually going up on the tower beyond the 50
ohm point. From that point down the gamma rod and the tower is acting like a
parallel wire transmission rod, transforming that impedance down to a lower
value, hopefully near 50. You will see the 50 ohm R plus inductive
I have not seen a length mentioned for the inverted L, so thought I would note
that by making the inverted L longer than a quarter wave moves the high current
portion up the vertical. I had good luck with an inverted L about 3/8 wave
long. By good luck I mean DXCC plus some on 160. I still am tr
I sure remember the 73 magazine articles by Gus, W4BPD. What a DXer and
humorous speaker/writer. Probably my most memorable club meeting was when I met
him in the early 60's. I have almost all those 73 magazines with his articles.
Regarding antennas, Gus did say a rare call was worth a lot of dB
Thanks to all for comments concerning my post a couple months ago inquiring
about BOG impedance. The short story is since then I have determined that one
of my BOGs must have a feed point impedance of approximately 400 ohms at my
location in New Kent County, just east of Richmond, Va.
The l
I have been looking for information on BOGs and have not been able to find any
info on measured impedance values. Other than they are low, depends on ground,
etc. I thought I would relate my recent experience.
I had tried a couple Beverages in the past at a salt marsh location and did not
ha
As far as verticals are concerned, since 2003 I have had great success with a
Half Square antenna on 80. (descriptions in the ARRL Antenna Book and in ARRL
Antenna Compendium No. 5) I have also used one on 40 and have one planned for
160.
One big advantage is that radials are not necessary as