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Tower as antenna

N

nfsus

Yeah its turned off, touch it
May 9, 2011
480
250
73
47
Arkansas
When I set up my tower I didn’t want to dig it in the ground so I could move it if I wanted to. So I used a plastic 55gal drum and poured in 5 bags of quiccrete. It’s anchored to the eave of the house. So it’s essentially isolated from the ground. It’s 55’ of tower I think to the top of the hat. Then I’ve a ground plane 10m (ok cb) on a 10’ mast above that.

If I use the tower as a vertical then the ground plane radials could act as a cap hat. If I unground the ground plane of course.

Wonder how this would work?
 

Tricky part is to find a proper feed point. An antenna tuner would probably cope with feeding it at the bottom of the tower. This is the kind of chore an antenna analyzer is made for. It can tell you how far off of 50 ohms you are and in which direction.

73
 
That barrel may have some capacitance to ground. Whether it is significant or not, I don't know.
 
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lay a counterpoise ground radial cut to 1/4 wl for whatever band you want to use.
connect to shield, connect center to tower.
sweep it with analyzer.
Make adjustments accordingly until you get what you want.
I
ran 40 foot of rohn 25, with 25 feet of alum 1 " pipe out the top.
tower was isolated from earth ground by a 6"x6" pt post., legs of tower bolted to the 6x6.
Laid out 24 ground radials for 75 meters, grounded the radials to my well casing pipe.
Put a relay, variable cap and tapped inductor at feed point.
direct feed 75 meter vert.
enable relay , matching network is in series with antenna and coax,,40 meter half wave vert.
Had a blast with that hunk of metal.
Used dacron ropes for guys.
 
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