[Antennas] Buried window line

[Joe Giacobello, K2XX]

The comments below are interesting and informative, but here's some 
additional anecdotal data regarding ladder line.  When I moved to my 
current QTH, our original house was down in a hollow ("holler" in local 
parlance).  I knew that there was no way that I was going to get out 
down in that hole, surrounded by high hills on all sides.  So I put up a 
40M EDZ on one of the hilltops.  I borrowed some 40 foot temporary 
military masts from a friend to hold the ends up and fed it with 1200 
feet (That's right-almost a 1/4 mile.) of 16 ga. ladder line.  I ran 
between 100 and 500 watts on all bands between 80 and 15 using a Viking 
MB and got out extremely well, especially 40 meters.  Using the graphs 
for window line losses in the Handbook, I would estimate the total loss 
for the 1200 feet at less than 1 dB.  Pretty good!

73, Joe

Wes (N7WS) and Linda wrote:

>At 11:01 AM 12/16/2002 -0600, Les Severson wrote:
>  
>
>>Wes,  What you says is true to a certain extent but you are forgetting a few
>>things...
>>    
>>
>
>Not necessarily forgotten, just unsaid <g>
>
>  
>
>>A random length of wire center fed with "window line" can be very
>>    
>>
>effectively used on all bands... 
>
>Well, it can be *matched* on all bands.  What the radiation pattern may be
>is another story. And it should be at least 3/8 lambda on the lowest
>frequency to be effective.
>
>(try doing that with your heliax fed dipole)  
>
>Actually, if you ran two dipoles in parallel (as I do) cut for 40 and 80
>meters and fed with 200' of 7/8" Heliax and a decent tuner (Qc=1000,
>Ql=200) the total worst-case loss @28MHz is a bit less than 3 dB.  Using
>Wireman 552 and a similar tuner, the loss is a shade over 1 dB.  This is
>*much* less difference than the nay Sayers who are squirting their lines
>with the garden hose are experiencing, but are totally unaware of.
>
>Furthermore, a case can be made that the simplicity of the coax feed
>outweighs the extra 2 dB loss.  YMMV.
>
>  
>
>>[snip...]
>>    
>>