Mt Washington Wx CAM
Zero-Five 43 Foot Multi-Band Vertical Antenna
If you are looking for a contest winning, DX powerhouse antenna, this is not the antenna for you! If you live on a city lot or in a covenant restricted neighborhood, this could get you on the air on 160 through 10 meters. This antenna requires a good ground plane beneath it and I would suggest getting one of the radial plates from someone like DX Engineering. Also, this antenna has very hight SWR, especially on the low bands. It also has very high voltages and currents on your feed line.
Let's look at the SWR on a typical 43 foot vertical antenna:
- 160 Meters: >100:1
- 80 Meters: >100:1
- 40 Meters: 7:1
- 30 Meters: 23:1
- 20 Meters: 27:1
- 17 Meters: 2:1
- 15 Meters: 12.4:1
- 12 Meters: 18.4:1
- 10 Meters: 4.8:1
The voltages on 160 and 80 meters, running 100 watts of power will be about 849 Volts RMS base voltage, with a Peak voltage of 1201.75 Volts. The Current will be 3.221 Amps, which would be deadly. As stated before, I would suggest purchasing or making a radial plate to mount to the antenna and radial system. The more radials you have, and the longer, will greatly enchance the use of this style of antenna. Because of the high voltages and currents, I strongly suggest you use some very good coax, like LMR-600. I would also suggest an Un-Un at the base of the antenna with an antenna tuner at the antenna base. I would suggest something like the MFJ-998RT Automatic Antenna Tuner at the base of the antenna. I have over 2,000 feet of radials on this antenna and it makes a huge difference.
As you can see, running just 100 watts can cause very high voltage and current. Think about what it would be at 1,500 watts? So that is why I suggest running the LMR-600, a good automatic antenna tuner at the base of the antenna feeding an Un-Un, and as many radials as you can and as long as you can.
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