Howard, all I can say is  wow!!  It seems that you are doing very well with
what you have.  You can never tell about an antenna until you try it.  

-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Howard Kaufman
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2013 8:53 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Cobra Antenna

Well Fred, this antenna breaks every rule in the books, its been up for 20
years, and I had to reconnect the feedline once.
My lot is 44 by 112 feet.  The challenge was to put up one antenna that
would work on 160 through 10 meters.  It gets out on 6 when the band is
open, but that wasn't in the plan.
Their was an article about all band antennas, and the guy figured out using
an antenna annalizer, that a 176 feet long dipole fed with ballenced line
through a balun and tuner, gave the most gain and least losses over the 9
HF bands.  Well, that's great!  How do I fit this in a 112 foot lot?
I got the center up 45 feet with a 10 foot tripod and 10 feet of mast on a
two story house.  Then I ran the wire out to a tree in back, and a tree
generously provided by the City of Milwaukee near the street.  I then took
the extra wire and made a Print J across the back yard to the garage in
back.  The front is a hairpin back to the lower corner of the house roof.
So it's kind of an inverted Z.
Since most of the energy comes off the center of the antenna, no problem.
Now the feedline, it comes down to the shack in the basement.  I tried
terminating it in an air balun just inside the house.  It didn't work on
160, but when I added the twin lead to make the total length around 81
feet, it gained 10 DB on 160.
Then I ran that feedline in a square 10 feet on a side around the shack.  I
hung it from the ceiling with hooks, and attached the line with loose zip
ties.
The balun runs in to an MFJ 989 tuner, to a coaxial switch, and then to
each of the three stations.
I need the external tuner on the top halves of 160 and 75, 60, and 40
meters.  Everything else can be tuned by the tuner in the ts-480.  The
Internal tuner will handle anything under 6-1.
I bought an imax 2000 for 10 12 and 15 meters.  The noise level is so much
higher, that this Inverted Z works better even on those bands.
I guess I do what I can with what I have.
Oh, the three stations are,
1.  ts-480 SAT.
2.  Tentec Omni D.
3.  Johnson Valiant and SX71.
Their is room on the switch for another radio.
It keeps calling for one.


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