As for narrow antenna bandwidth, that can be partially solved by increasing the diameter of the antenna, such as replacing a single wire with a multi-wire "cage". That's often preferred to adjusting the tuner at the base of the antenna periodically.
I have the very same bandwidth problem with my 160m inv-L. But I'm confident that that if I replaced the single #16 THHN with, say, a 4-wire cage ~18" on a side, I would see a very worthwhile increase in 2:1 VSWR bandwidth. The same would be true if one replaced a single-wire shunt tower feed with such a cage. Much has been written about this in the past here, and I suggest a search in the Topband archives. (And before anyone suggests it, increasing the bandwidth in the above manner does NOT decrease the radiated signal strength! :-) I'd rather not comment on anything else in this thread. This is just FYI. 73, Mike www.w0btu.com _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
