height of antenna
height of antenna
I am going to erect my tower and antenna again. What is the best height for a tri-band beam(10,15,20 mtrs)I had it at 60 feet but one of the sections broke while trying to raise it. I now have 50 but would like to use only 40 feet if it does not comprimes my signal. Tnx.
Re: height of antenna
I think as a rule of thumb, the higher the better. For a tri-bander I would say that 60-70 feet would be a good overall height, but 40-50' is sure a lot better than 25' or nothing at all. On 10 & 15 meters 40-50' is pretty decent, 20 meters not so much. When I had towers I did a lot of playing around with different heights and found that for my location on 10 & 15 meters 60-70' was about the best for everywhere around the world. On 20 meters I found hat 80 feet was a pretty good overall height, but found when I raised it to 100 feet, I seemed to gain a whole bunch to Aisia (Ja) but it seemed to lose a little bit to Europe. On the long path the 100' was a Killer. I think if I could go from 40' to 50' without too much effort, I would definitely try to do it.
WB8JBG wrote:I am going to erect my tower and antenna again. What is the best height for a tri-band beam(10,15,20 mtrs)I had it at 60 feet but one of the sections broke while trying to raise it. I now have 50 but would like to use only 40 feet if it does not comprimes my signal. Tnx.
In general, the higher it is will mean a lower take-off angle. The lower the angle, the longer the path. Many contesters will have single band 10 and 15 meter antennas mounted lower on the tower fixed for the caribbean and from the northeast US even for EU. Optimal height will depend on what you want to do with it.