[Fists] 40 Meters Revisited!

[ATanner283@aol.com]

Hi all....I regularly check/call on 160 and 80 when I am home, but have yet 
to have much success. A few but far between QSO's. With the advent of the "no 
radial" vertical that is pretty popular now, most guys won't get on 80/160. 
Takes a bit more room for dipoles. However, there are alternatives to dipoles 
as we know them. They can be laid out "crooked," inverted vee's, the ends can 
hang if you cant get the full spread, halfwave slopers which is in use quite 
a bit by top banders, to name a few. Some of these configurations will have 
narrow band widths, but so what??? You are interested in .058 and a few up or 
down from there.  Cloud burners??? No problem. Most of your QSO's will be 
stateside anyway so who cares. I used a short "zepp" (end fed with REAL 
ladder line) on 160 for a long time. I made a bag full of USA contacts coast 
to coast with 100 watts. Had to use a tuner of course. That antenna was only 
about 30 feet at the highest point. I couldn't use the amp on it because it 
would light up the garage and back porch lights. Even a short vertical with a 
loading coil could be made to work. Many fellers have run 75/80 mobile for 
years. Even a Hustler with an 80 coil on the roof would work, with a few 
counter poise wires.
   I thought we just had some sort of band study not long ago where other 
frequencies were advised. Can't remember. And don't remember seeing it in the 
Keynote, but that doesn't mean it wasn't. I tried for a long long time to get 
ops to move to novice bands for Sprint, but apparently it was much more fun 
to QRM each other than spread out over the open and unused portion of 80/40 
meters. Finally gave up on that. Now dot have time for much, but still work a 
lot of FISTS DX and stateside. See you on the air........same ole' 
freq's...QRM and all....Al/W8FAX/2192
EXTRA.....................................HEAVY