[Elecraft] Antenna considerations (what to do?)

[Vic Rosenthal]

Dick Hissink wrote:

> The antenna I set my eye on is the 8030
> vertical. And now, here comes the big question. Titanex advises to use a
> tuningbox close to the antenna to make it operate at different bands.
> This is a very expensive box, and made for more than 1KW of power..not
> exactly QRP.  My question is, can I feed the 8030 directly with coax and
> use the KAT2 to tune the antenna? 

Dick,

The Titanex 8030 is 14.7 m (48') tall.  It will probably provide 
reasonable efficiency on 40 m and 80 m when fed with good (RG-213 type) 
coax and tuned by the KAT2.  Efficiency will be somewhat less on 160 
meters, because the antenna is quite short.  On 30 it is close to a 
half-wavelength, so the SWR will probably be very high and efficiency 
will be low due to loss in the cable.  You might have to try different 
lengths of cable if you can't match all bands at first.

I have a better idea:  why don't you make a low power version of the 
tuning box?  You would need two relays and few coils and capacitors.

Vic K2VCO