[Kenwood] Zepp questions

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer]

I've used an 80 meter double extended zepp. I used various feeders from
direct burial (shielded) telephone cable to flat twin lead to 1" space
18 gauge copper weld. Most of its life the ends were 25 to 30 feet up
and the middle was either 30 or 55 feet up. Working over a 300 mile path
on 75 meters it worked well all the time.

I didn't try the parallel wire to give gain towards the horizon and mine
was oriented with an end towards Europe so it wasn't much of a DX
antenna. 

Since my NE pole rotted off, I've gone to a 1/2 wave dipole in inverted
V fashion and work the 75 meter path just the same.

The double extended zepp (95 meters long) did work well on VHF with
appropriate tuners at least in its many favored directions.

One time our club used a wind power site for Field Day and put up a 75
meter dipole 150 feet high. It didn't put a strong enough signal into
the coasts to overcome their local signals and it was very poor for
working the local states. We did work the coasts better than a low
dipole but not well enough to gain that many points. We'd have worked
three or four times the stations with a low dipole.

Lengthening your dipole to full double extended Zepp will warm the
clouds more but that bit more signal will cover a larger region than
what you are getting now.

73, Jerry, K0CQ
-- 
Entire content copyright Dr. Gerald N. Johnson. Reproduction by
permission only.