[ICOM] AH4 tuner on 160m

[Mike Morrow]

160 is sensitive to short antennas like any other band.  But with 160 you
have to deal with far more ground effect than on other bands.  The short of
it is: run as much wire as you can, avoiding the odd half wave pitfall, of
course.

I started with about 87 feet of wire on 160.  It worked but a lot of the RF
was left in the tuner.  I then doubled it and then accidentally put up 1/2
wave and the tuner complained at me (by not tuning -- wonder why).

I finally went out to a long long wire.  I forget now how long it was but it
ran off a long way into the woods.  I worked the U.S. fairly well from
Arkansas.  But I was losing a lot to the ground, I am sure.

But I surely had a potent signal on 10 meters!

Mike/W6XXX

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cletus W Whitaker" <whitaker at pa.net>
To: "ICOM Reflector" <icom at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 8:14 AM
Subject: Re: [ICOM] AH4 tuner on 160m


> de WB2CPN South Central Pennsylvania   2004.05.16
>
> I've used the AH-4 on a 170 feet ladder-line dipole on
> 160 meters.  The antenna was mainly for the other bands.
> Now I'm using a end-fed wire about 75 feet long on all
> bands, including the time on 160 meters.  The ground is
> the well stem pipe about 60 feet deep.
>
> The main consideration is not so much what length of wire
> the AH-4 will resonate, but how does 160 meters react to
> lengths which are somewhat less than a half-wave dipole,
> or a quarter or 5/8 vertical.  The length of the wire is
> more important than whether an AH-4 or some other method
> of coils and capacitors are used to resonate the antenna.
>
> Let us know how you make out.   73   Clete
>
>
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