Hi Mike.

I was interested to hear your comments on the Carolina Windom, as this is
another antenna that I had considered for my QTH.  My space is cramped to
the extent that the only way that I could fit the G5RV into the yard was to
bend it slightly.  Otherwise, it would go about 10 ft. into the next
yard.  I basically have a little over 90 ft. of depth to my back yard, and
the yard is 62 ft across.  That's a little tight to get an 80 meter antenna
in, and I want 80 because of the NTS nets around here, but I've considered
160 to be a lost cause in a piece of property this small.  I never did much
160 meters anyway.  Seems like everybody already knows everybody up there.

Anyway, my whole effort has been in trying to improve efficiency on 75
meters, for which the G5RV is better than the vertical, but far short of my
old inverted vee system that I described in my previous message.  It both
heard and got out better than the G5RV.  It was kind of so-so on the WARC
bands, but in my opinion, played at least as well as any other multi-band,
and played at least well enough that I never got any sass from my
auto-tuner--even on 20 meters, where the system theoretically shouldn't
have worked!  I'll grant you that a half wave antenna on 20 meters would
probably have outperformed the 80/40 inverted vee system, but the auto
tuner in my TS690S would tune it and when I called stations, they would
usually answer, and occasionally I even broke through a pileup.  What more
can you ask?

Unfortunately, it seems like the whole name of the game is real estate.  If
you have lots of it, you can put up full sized antennas like the one that I
had, and get good results.  If you don't have the space, you can put up
smaller antennas like the ones I have now, and while it is true that they
won't perform as well as the full sized antennas, they are still better
than not getting on the air at all.

I suppose I might throw more watts at the situation if I didn't have really
nearby neighbors, but no one has complained about interference from my 100
watt signal.  Going to 1 kilowatt, or 1.5 kilowatt is probably pushing my
luck a lot!  I think I'd rather do what I can with 100 watts and let it go
at that.

73, de Lou K2LKK



Louis Kim Kline
A.R.S. K2LKK
Home e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
Work e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
Work Telephone:  (585) 697-5753