The old new 160 meter inverted V gets re-incarnated.

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  • Опубликовано: 15 сен 2024
  • So early last year, (and the end of the year before that), I had put up an "Inverted Vee" (fan dipole) for 80 and 160 meters in a big tree on the edge of the woods on the West third of my lot. It worked really really well on both, 80 meters, and 160 meters, and mostly w/o the use of a tuner.
    Fast-forward to early summer of last year when I decided to pull the pin on a big fence job to secure the property. In doing so, 4 trees on the Southern property line (300 feet) had to be removed. I let the fence guys cut them down and drop them in the neighbors empty lot (before he broke ground to build a custom home on the lot). Anyways, one of the trees also took down one of the 128 foot elements (14-gauge stranded THHN).
    I continued to use just the 80 meter antenna up until I erected my 140-foot "Doublet" (2x 70' elements), and then ended up using the Doublet for 80 meters.
    A month or so ago, I went to pull down the 3-legged Inverted Vee (by the coax), and it wasn't coming down real easy. The rope must of grown into the crook of the branch that it was pulled up over.
    Leaned into pulling on the coax a bit more, and BLAP! - something broke loose, and I landed on my back in the muddy grass looking up at a whole pile of wire falling down on me.
    Turns out the the top of the 4"x4" inch grey electrical box of the balun broke off (and stayed in the tree), and bottom half with the balun guts, 3 elements, and a bunch of LMR-400 came tumbling down (on me).
    I gave the balun guts to another local ham who really needed it for his 160 meter antenna re-do project, and saved the coax (which I ended up using for the Hex beam actually).
    I tried to pull the stuck rope out of the back of the tree, but nothing doing. So 2 days ago, when I decided to re-do this Inverted V because a new inverted V for 160 meters that I just erected on my new (tower arm) was picking up too much electrical noise from the house.
    So I tied the stuck rope from the back side of that tree to the back hoe on my tractor, and proceeded to drive thru the forest in hopes of pulling some part of the rope down. I pretty much figured that it would break and leave some portion in the tree.
    To my surprise, it broke loose, and the whole length of the old rope (along with the top of the old balun) came down.
    3 tries in 24-degree temperatures the other day, and I was able to shoot a new line up with my air cannon. And I got it up really high in that tree too!
    I made up a new 128' element (because I couldn't find the one that got pulled down with the tree felling), installed a new balun from DX Engineering, and pulled up new 1/4" rope. This time, I also pulled up a 'retrieval line' consisting of some pieces of black Dacron paracord).
    Anyways, I pulled it up much higher than the previous antenna, but it appears that my coax was a bit short.
    This video shows this installation, and the shorter than desired coax (that I might have to extend).

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