HF + 6 OCFD - what works here, and maybe why.

[admin]

Backstory: I live out of town, with plenty of space between some high (Loblolly) pine trees.

I started with a commercial 258' OCFD, with a feedpoint @ 15%. The not very thick bare wire was at about 30' up for most of its length. The balun ratio was undisclosed. A fine get-started antenna, MFJ-2016. Even landed my first DXCC with it and just 100W.

As is the way with radio, one always wants whatever it is to work just a bit better. I looked at the MFJ and thought how should it be if it was reconstructed with best materials and better installation.

I used EZnec to model the ideal length for 160m and found that I should be using around 280' -significantly longer. The feedpoint was also moved to 20% as this seemed a better compromise for a 6:1 balun + common mode choke (Palomar) over all ham bands 160-10. Why 6:1? No scientific reason more than a tip of the hat to the popular Backmaster family of antennas. (By now a satisfactory homebrew Moxon beam was used for 6m, selected wit…login to view the rest of this post