I use a reduced size flag (50%) antenna about 7 feet above the ground mounted on our deck right above our pool (comes down in the summer so we can swim) and I use a KB-5 for the feed line transformer. I rotate this antenna with a TV rotor. It sits about 20 feet from the house and about 50 feet from the transmit antenna. I have not tried any other height above ground simple because where I have the flag mounted is the best location I can find on my lot. This year I added remote variable termination with a photo cell and white LED. I see no difference in F/B with the variable termination on any band except when the resistance goes above 1500 then the F/B nears zero. Most of the time I leave it at 800-1000 and F/B seems to be a consistent 25db in most directions. I really have no other equipment to accurately measure F/B besides the S meter on my TS590 and a signal source from WWV. I live on an urban lot with lots of noise from various sources and the flag is almost always much more quite than my transmit antenna. I tried very hard to decouple the feed line, rotor line and LED feed line prior to entering the shack. I don't find that this antenna nulls the local big signals (1000 miles and in) very much and I always appreciate when a DX station operates split. I also use a Pixel loop. They both do well to null out local noise but sometimes the flag hears better and sometimes the Pixel loop hears better. I should add that on top band and 80 meters with the flag I use the DXE RPA-1 preamp. 73, Tony - K8ALM _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
