160m Loft Vertical

Small 160m Antenna

This is a very small vertical 160m antenna that fits in the loft of even my small house. It was built as a way of getting a signal out on 160m for local AM contacts, but the local noise level was far too high to allow it to be used at night for this purpose. However, on WSPR it did a pretty good job with WSPR spots from a very long way across Europe being received when running 2.5W out.

The idea was to wind a length of PVC piping with as much wire as I could find (a bit like a helical, but on 160m), attach some top capacitance in the form of a couple of horizontal wires, bring the whole thing to resonance, tuned against my central heating system as ground. Design is not critical. If you use a different ground you may not get away with just a series tuned circuit as in my case and you may have to use a proper ATU.

Results

Results have been good: WSPR spots from Sweden (over 1000km) and Poland on JT65. All with 2.5W RF from the TX.