I don’t have an antenna farm – we do have family farms but they are way to far away to set up antennas. I am saying that the Carolina Windom 160 is up…I bought this back last spring with high hopes of having it up back then… damn work gets in the way again. If you check this one out you know it takes a little bit of real estate to just get it up and stretched out.
I am fortunate that I have several acres here. I do have some trees of sufficient size but none in the middle or close, to hold up the feed point. On second thought, I do have one big oak tree but would never be able to get the feed point up high in it and if I did, I would never be able to get back to it… so I opted for the “pipe tower”, near my shack to hold it up. I have it hanging from about 40 feet (maybe 39?). IT is not exactly flat top but a combo of flat and inverted V. The ends are at least 15 to 20 feet off the ground and the general direction is north (short) south (long).
I know, I know, you are not really supposed to put the vertical section close to a metal tower but this is what I have so this is where it was hung. I did figure out some stand-offs for the vertical that hold it out 24 inches from the tower.
The feed point is hung from the cross, as you can see, that holds up a dual band antenna on the other end. Unfortunately, I do have one guy wire that is a few inches from the 4:1 balun. I may have to twist the cross a few more degrees but then the short leg gets close to the same guy? I can’t hang it above the guys as the dual band antenna is already too close to the top antenna (allowing 2 feet from top of one to mount of next). I am in about the only position I could see but given time I may see some other spot…
Going on, the stand-offs (2) are made from 3X2 inch plastic saddles, 2 feet of UV protected 2 inch plastic conduit and the 2 inch pipe tee on the end. All easily available at Lowes. The saddles were picked that size since the bottom section of the pipe tower is 2 7/8 inch tubing. Maybe a 2 1/2 saddle could work but would be too tight and these are loose enough around the clamp bolts to run the coax for the other antennas inside them with out pinching. I filled the end of the 2inch pipe with fiberglass insulation and cut some Styrofoam for plugs on both ends of the Tee then put some electrical tape on it to hold it all in (keeping the bees and wasps and small birds out). I wanted some foam pipe insulation to put in but at the time I didn’t have any. Since the tower is easy to put up and down I will swap that out when I get a good piece of the foam fill.
Initial results are pretty good. I do not have definite tests for anything on it just listening to multiple stations and swapping between this antenna and a 80 meter inverted V. Strange they both tune very close to each other on the tuner. This antenna shows to have several db better receive in all directions. In fact for a group about 250 miles south of me on 80 meters they were about 10db better than the inverted V which is oriented SW / NE so one of the lobes should have been high for the direct south or very near it. It does have a bit higher noise which I attribute to the vertical section and some area power noise I have here. That, however, is well out paced by the extra signal strengths. I am anxious to test it on 160 meter but as yet have not had an opportunity to do that. I did a little play on 40 meter PSK and it was really strong there the night after I got it up. I will try to get some better comparisons and post when I have a better chance to use it over several sessions. I just have to remember to compare and write it down…. ha! once I get started on PSK – and rag-chew I forget to write down other things than what we were talking about.
It is really bad when you get one antenna up and you already have plans for the next. Maybe this coming spring I will get one of those 43 ft. verticals put up out on the Pond Dam and get some ground wires run so I can test it against this. In either case it will be good to have several different types so when conditions warrant I can swap to the better performance…
When it gets cold out I should be hanging out on 40 PSK in the late evening but you never know… I used to do a lot of 80 meter Ragchew around 3.868 (way back) and some on 1.9 +/- as well as PSK up on 20m, but with the sun cycle kicked in, I hear things are doing well all the way up through 10m? – WD0AJG