[Antennas] Inductively loaded Dipole vs. Zig-Zag Dipole

Mon Jan 22 19:06:10 EST 2007

I can't tell you which one will work better but I did put up a variant 
of the bent dipole. Mine was about 130 feet in a horizontal run with 
coax to the center. Each end was bent at about a 90 degree angle so the 
whole thing looked like the profile of a staple (before use). It would 
load okay and I made contacts on 160 with it. The only surprise was that 
the calculated length was short by about 4 feet in each leg.
Later I brought the ends together to make a full wave 75 meter loop and 
fed that with ladder line. This then turned back into an ordinary 75 
meter dipole that I feed both sides against station ground when I work 
160. I've gotten good signal reports with the 75 meter dipole fed 
against ground. Ground is four ground rods over the 40 foot perimeter 
around the house tied together with scraps of #4 copper.
If I didn't have the loading coils already I think I would use bending 
to fit the space available and try it against ground someday just to see.
Pat
wa4tuk
k0occ at comcast.net wrote:
> I have about 140 feet between two trees to put up a 160 meter antenna. Would really appreciate the benefit of experiences and opinions as to what might be better option for general purpose 160 antenna.
>> A) Inductively loaded short dipole 140 feet long, 40 feet high (loading coils in middle of legs). (feed with 450 ohm ladder line.)
>> B) Zig-Zag dipole 240 feet long, 140 feet in street line 40 feet high, and ends bent sideways and down. (feed with 450 ohm ladder line)
>> In net, am I better off using loading coils on shorter antenna, or bending the longer antenna to fit space?
>> TNX & 73 
>> --
> Ernie, k0occ 
> Atlanta, GA
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