Sunday, March 27, 2011

Tower preparation


The successful resolution of QRM re-kindled my enthusiasm to erect my antenna farm! Here the final section of my lattice tower is being painted. Once installed the tower will stand around 15m; but before I do that I need to add the supporting components in order to fit the antenna rotator.

There's quite a lot of science surrounding optimum antenna performance on HF; higher isn't necessarily better - it really boils down to what you what to achieve, the type of antenna, and the topography of your particular location.

G3TXQ has a detailed explanation on his website http://www.karinya.net/g3txq/hexbeam/height_2/

Quite honestly, 50ft is already scary high for antenna maintenance! .... and according to G3TXQ his study has shown that "if we can get the antenna up around the 40ft-50ft mark we will be within 1dB of the optimum height for short-haul and medium-haul paths on all bands 20m thru 10m. And we will probably accept the "half S point" penalty that our modest height suffers on the long-haul paths" 


- that's good enough for me!   

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