A simple solution to 160m

Inspired yet again by Bas, PE4BAS, I've been looking this week at simple ways to get on 160m, without too much arranging of new supports, or buying new wire.

A solution I came across quite quickly for this long-wavelength band - and large antenna requirement - was the folded vertical.

I already have an old 10m fishing pole buried among a Yew hedge, which has little purpose these days.

So, I took an existing 20m length of 300-Ohm twin wire, and ran nearly 10m up the pole.  The remaining 10m runs horizontally.  In other words, a folded inverted-L antenna.  The important bit is to join the ends of the twinwire together at the distal end (making a 40m-long radiator). One side of the balun is connected to a ground stake, from which several short radials run.

The basic concept - a folded Marconi, or inverted-L antenna.

The feed point is a 4:1 balun, with coax going back into the shack.  I had to do some repair work here, as a rat had chewed the coax where it entered the house.  This is the point they always attack coax, because they can smell the food and warmth, which they are trying to get to.  For this reason, I no longer run coax feeds through walls at or near ground level,. but at head height.  Luckily, rats don't seem interested in chewing coax anywhere else!

The antenna, which would fit most small UK gardens, certainly works at both 80m and 160m, matching down to about 1.2:1 on 160m, and 1:1 on 80m.  It seems to be better at 160m, where I managed a few QSOs, and even managed to get a reasonable, -18dB report from a VO1 station at his greyline time.

More time needed to see how well it works DX in practice, but  initial tests look promising.  Curiously, I am again hearing better than most others are hearing me.  That may well again be due to much higher noise levels at the receivers, which is a well-observed phenomenon on other bands, too.