Hello Victor,
That is the reason - you have it correct.
73
Tim K3LR
On 2026-07-20 13:55, Victor A. Kean, Jr. wrote:
Why "must" the sections be welded together? I understand that welding
them
decreases noise from small arcs. Is there another reason?
Victor, K1LT
On 7/20/26 02:22, Tim Duffy wrote:
Speaking of base fed insulated towers on 160... that happen to be 90
degrees
high (about 120 feet) - by design... I have had this for over 30 years
- it
is what I think is the best vertical antenna array for 160 that I have
found. Bandwidth performance is narrow - but it tunes up easy and it
really
works. AA1K, VE3EJ, K9CT, W5ZN and NR5M and others all use the K3LR
Yagi
vertical design. WA3FET and K3LC worked with me on the early designs.
This is a very effective gain antenna (almost 6 dB) with good front to
back
ratio (30 dB and can be used on RX with attn.) is described in
editions 3,4
and 5 of the ON4UN Low Band DXing book by ARRL. Only takes a single
120 foot
tower (all tower sections must be Cad welded together). It is a Three
element vertical parasitic beam (shoots in four directions). BUT needs
FIVE
radial systems of 1/4 wavelength radials... I use 120 radials per
element -
one quarter wavelength long - 130 feet.
The most recent version of this antenna has been updated by work (28
pages)
from Greg, W8WWV here:
https://www.k3lr.com/engineering/160m/K3LR160m2024Revisit.pdf
This is currently what is in use at K3LR. Twice this array/station at
K3LR
worked more than one hundred countries in a single CQWW CW weekend on
160
(48 hour contest).
We have just installed a brand new broadcast style radial system (all
silver
soldered) for all five vertical elements - this summer of 2026 (old
one was
35 years old). Thanks W3YQ for engineering the installed solution.
The performance is spectacular.
73
Tim K3LR
-----Original Message-----
From: Topband [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Rob Atkinson via Topband
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2026 8:29 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Topband: The Big Guys
you can have a broadcast tower that's too tall for 160 m. which
results in high angle lobes. For this to work well you need one for a
station that's up near the top of the broadcast band. A good way to
tell is whether or not the tower is lamped. The ground system
certainly helps but a ham can put in a good ground system on his own
monopole. Don't believe that only broadcasters can do this, although
nowadays a lot of radials on 160 costs a lot more than they did 25
years ago. These antennas will likely stink on receive. You'll just
pick up noise. Expect to have to set up some sort of separate receive
arrangement. By the way, there are and have been a few hams with base
fed insulated towers and ground systems on 160. They don't chase DX
or contest so you may not have run across them.
73
Rob
K5UJ
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