Hi David, I live in a windy area with 100km frequent wind gusts in the spring. I bought a DXE heavy duty 80m self-supporting tilt-over vertical on the advice of a professional tower guy. It was expensive and the assembly took a couple of days, but the result was worth it. It seemed built to mil-spec standards, with heavy aluminum tubing, heavy stainless steel hardware, and heavy duty winch. I have since added a base loading coil and remote vacuum relay to convert it to a duo-band 80m/160m antenna with 60 120ft radials. It takes five minutes to crank over. Here’s the web link:
https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-7580fs-va- <https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-7580fs-va-3>3 73, Jim w8zr Sent from my iPhone On Dec 5, 2020, at 6:37 AM, David Aslin G3WGN <da...@aslinvc.com> wrote: I'm building a contest station and the time has come to make a choice of 160m TX antenna. Looking at DXE Thunderbolt I note that the capacity hat extends to a significant distance down the vertical section. It's my understanding that will shield some of the radiation from the upper part of the vertical. Alternatives like a vertical tee would not have this issue. Is my understanding correct? I'm considering a commercial antenna as high strength telescoping antenna tubing is unobtanium in UK. My QTH is an exposed windy location so strength matters! 73, David G3WGN M6O Sent from my Galaxy _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector