I have always been intrigued by Jon's use of a second parasitic director element toward EU !!! Really great installation.
73 Joel W5ZN/ZF2ZN -----Original Message----- From: Topband <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Jon Zaimes, AA1K via Topband Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2026 7:46 PM To: TopBand List <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Topband: The Big Guys Hmmm....never thought about cad welding the sections together! My version uses 119' of Rohn 25, with a 6m yagi for top loading. It's electrically a bit longer than 1/4 wave. Sits on some big power company ceramic insulators I scrounged from a local salvage yard just before erecting in 1998. Initially this tower was 100' but I wasn't happy with the performance with the shortened parasitics. Later increased height. And added 2nd director toward Europe (adds 0.9 db gain). After 28 years the open-air relays at the base of each parasitic are due for an overhaul. It's "on the list." Too late to weld the sections together. But perhaps paralleling the tower with copper wires could help. I did use Noalox on all the joints when constructing. A photo of the base on my website. 73/Jon Jon P. Zaimes, AA1K Tower climber for hire Felton, Delaware http://www.aa1k.us/ Cell: 302-632-2353 Reviews of AA1K tower work on eham website: http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/12922 Hug your favorite tower every day, and always stay connected to it. On Monday, July 20, 2026 at 02:35:57 AM EDT, Tim Duffy <[email protected]> wrote: Speaking of base fed insulated towers on 160... that happen to be 90 degrees high (about 120 feet) - by design... I have had this for over 30 years - it is what I think is the best vertical antenna array for 160 that I have found. Bandwidth performance is narrow - but it tunes up easy and it really works. AA1K, VE3EJ, K9CT, W5ZN and NR5M and others all use the K3LR Yagi vertical design. WA3FET and K3LC worked with me on the early designs. This is a very effective gain antenna (almost 6 dB) with good front to back ratio (30 dB and can be used on RX with attn.) is described in editions 3,4 and 5 of the ON4UN Low Band DXing book by ARRL. Only takes a single 120 foot tower (all tower sections must be Cad welded together). It is a Three element vertical parasitic beam (shoots in four directions). BUT needs FIVE radial systems of 1/4 wavelength radials... I use 120 radials per element - one quarter wavelength long - 130 feet. The most recent version of this antenna has been updated by work (28 pages) from Greg, W8WWV here: https://www.k3lr.com/engineering/160m/K3LR160m2024Revisit.pdf This is currently what is in use at K3LR. Twice this array/station at K3LR worked more than one hundred countries in a single CQWW CW weekend on 160 (48 hour contest). We have just installed a brand new broadcast style radial system (all silver soldered) for all five vertical elements - this summer of 2026 (old one was 35 years old). Thanks W3YQ for engineering the installed solution. The performance is spectacular. 73 Tim K3LR -----Original Message----- From: Topband [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Rob Atkinson via Topband Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2026 8:29 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Topband: The Big Guys you can have a broadcast tower that's too tall for 160 m. which results in high angle lobes. For this to work well you need one for a station that's up near the top of the broadcast band. A good way to tell is whether or not the tower is lamped. The ground system certainly helps but a ham can put in a good ground system on his own monopole. Don't believe that only broadcasters can do this, although nowadays a lot of radials on 160 costs a lot more than they did 25 years ago. These antennas will likely stink on receive. You'll just pick up noise. Expect to have to set up some sort of separate receive arrangement. By the way, there are and have been a few hams with base fed insulated towers and ground systems on 160. They don't chase DX or contest so you may not have run across them. 73 Rob K5UJ _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
