Dale, I thing someone has already beat you. Have you noticed all of those self-supporting tapered tubular galvanized steel cell phone towers sprouting over the country? And they have short limbs at the top for attachments.
I would think some enterprising 160M buff would consider parking an RV near the base of one of them and shoot a line over the top, then pull up a wire cage gamma rod for feeding the tower. (K4TMC idea patent pending). :-) 73, Henry - K4TMC On Sun, Aug 11, 2013 at 10:41 PM, DALE LONG <dale.l...@prodigy.net> wrote: > > > Tom, that gives me an idea.. > > An artificial tree (metallic) about 130 feet tall. Wonder how many of > them I could sell. > > Where's the nearest patent office? > > 73, > > Dale - N3BNA > > > > ________________________________ > From: Tom W8JI <w...@w8ji.com> > To: topband@contesting.com > Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2013 10:21 PM > Subject: Re: Topband: Vertical vs inverted L question/opinions > > > > Why is an inverted "L" apparently so popular on 160 when it wastes so > much RF as a cloud warmer? > > "Wastes so much RF" is sort of subjective. > > Comparing an L to a T, both 65 feet high and resonant over 50 radials, the > T has almost exactly the same average ground wave signal. There is only a > tiny fraction of a dB difference. In some directions the L is a tiny bit > stronger, and in some directions the T is a tiny bit stronger, but it all > amounts to a fraction of a dB. > > The only real major issue is the L has about 0.4 dB front-to-back. > > They aren't that much different in impedance, either. > > I'm not sure anyone would see any difference, except perhaps the L fills > in the deep vertical null a little bit. > > This changes if the L and T are not self-resonant. Even so, unless the L > is made so long the current maximum moves out of the vertical section, > there isn't really what most would consider a significant difference. > > In my opinion, the choice is mostly a matter of what best fits the > supports. Unless you try to use Tree for an antenna, then you might be 20 > dB down. > > 73 Tom > _________________ > Topband Reflector > _________________ > Topband Reflector > _________________ Topband Reflector