[Elecraft] 80 Meter Verticals

[Fred Jensen]

Verticals are generally an S-unit or maybe 2 noisier on receive than 
horizontal antennas unless you are in a very quiet location.  A base-fed 
1/4 wave [or less] vertical is analogous to a telegraph line with one 
wire, using ground as the return.  If you can't put in a good ground 
system, you'll be disappointed.  I have used Inv-L's and Marconi T's 
with as few as 2 radials on the ground, and they worked, but that's not 
saying much when the alternative was no antenna at all.

Your idea for top loading with the guys will work fine, that's how WWV 
loads their antennas and the way many LORAN-C antennas were loaded.  My 
last 160m inv-L had about 70 ft vertical and the top horizontal was 
about 30 ft which is a bit under 1/4 wavelength. The impedance at the 
bottom was about 57+j130 ohms which matched the 50 ohm coax nicely with 
just a variable cap in series.  I was able to get 12 radials out a few 
inches under the surface.  Worked very good for transmitting, receiving 
... not so much.  It was pretty noisy.

73,

Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County
On 2/27/2017 3:43 PM, Don Wilhelm wrote:
> Ted,
>
> The inverted L will have some horizontally polarized radiation. The 
> other top loaded verticals should have only vertically polarized 
> radiation - assuming that the top loading is symmetrical, whether that 
> be a capacity hat or a T wire.
>
> In general, the vertically polarized radiation will be at a lower 
> angle than horizontally polarized, but that all depends on the ground 
> conductivity and your radial system.  A radial system of 64 radials is 
> good if your ground conductivity is decent, but if you are in an area 
> where ground conductivity is poor, you may have better luck with 
> horizontal antennas or an inverted Vee - the higher the better.
>
> So the answer is "it all depends".  If you do not have a wonderful 
> ground screen, a vertical may perform worse than a horizontal antenna 
> because a lot of your RF goes into "heating the worms".