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1/2 wave Vs 5/8 wave vertical for DX?
- Thread starter Dereka5
- Start date
BJ radionut
Supporting Member and 6m addict
standard Horizontal 1/2 wave Dipole
higher means better
Horizontal dipole will beat any vertical as long as you can get it at least half a wavelength high so about 16ft for CB. Ideally you'd have two antennas, a vertical for local, a horizontal dipole or beam for DX.
I've got a tree about 20 feet away from my shack, and the tree is about 18 feet high, so I think I'll construct an 1/2 wave dipole and string it from the top of the tree to the shack horizontally.
So, do you think the dipole like this will probably outsmart the vertical for DX?
So, do you think the dipole like this will probably outsmart the vertical for DX?
No guarantees; build it and test it. Keep records of changes you make and how the performance is changed.
If Marconi had built his transmitter and was looking for this thread on the Internet so he could build the best antenna somewhere around150 years ago he'd probably still be looking. Personal involvement trumps most any such venture.
If Marconi had built his transmitter and was looking for this thread on the Internet so he could build the best antenna somewhere around150 years ago he'd probably still be looking. Personal involvement trumps most any such venture.
Everyone will have an opinion about what they use and like, as Beetle said the best way is to try and see for yourself. For myself a dipole has worked best for me. The downside of a dipole is you really won't want to use it for local comm.
At that height from experience up to around 6,000 miles definitely. Above 6000 miles the vertical will start to win.
What direction it is in will have some effect on what you hear. With it horizontal the radiation and reception is broadside so if it's pointing north-south you'll hear east-west.
If you configure it as a inverted V so you have the centre point high up and bring the legs down at no steeper than a 45 degree angle it'll be more omnidirectional.
Because the world is a globe looking at a 2D map will give you a false idea of what you can hear. For example if you're on the Canadian border in say Maine you'd think you'd need to send a signal east at 90 degrees heading to reach me here in the UK where as in fact you need to aim north east 55-60 degrees..aiming East would get you North West Africa. You need to generate an azimuth map for where you are in the world, I use this site: https://ns6t.net/azimuth/