For a long time, I’ve been using a 67-foot inverted-L wire supported by a ~6M pole, fed by a special homebrew manual tuner, usually with no added counterpoise, for SOTA activations on 40-30-20-17-15M. This is a proven system. There are no traps, and the set-up is simple. If space is limited, I run the far end of the wire through trees or across rock cairns to keep it elevated. There is a link at 52 feet, and I open that mostly when I need to get up and stretch and get on 17M.
I decided to see if I could tune this wire up on 60M, and I can. I have two good options:
-
Connect a 12-foot counterpoise wire and I get a reactive but easy match, moderate impedance, quick and not fussy.
-
Don’t connect the counterpoise and get a somewhat different match, moderate impedance, very quick to QSY.
Either way, I usually get spotted by one or two RBN stations, and I make contacts one to or states away, as well as with in-state stations.
All the other bands 40-30-20-17-15 can be tuned easily with the 12-foot counterpoise attached or not, so I don’t even have to unplug it when QSY-ing back to those bands.
I also discovered that I can tune up on 80M with the same wires and tuner, and I get a reasonable match, but I’ve had little reason to use 80M so far.
I added a SPDT switch to my tuner to extend the tuning down to 60M and 80M. I used mica caps to lower the resonant frequency of the tank circuit for each band.
My tuner has both input and output variable tuning caps, so I can match a MUCH wider range of reactive impedances than most of the simple tuners can.
The ops who use auto-tuners are able to get their matches with similar wires also.
60 meters is similar to what 40M was like a few years ago. It gives NVIS and high-angle skip near mid-day, and longer skip in the morning and afternoon. Once the summer thunderstorms get going, I expect that 60M will be somewhere between challenging and useless!
60M sure is nice to have in winter, with the low solar flux and weak ionization. I plan to keep using it if others do. 40M no longer is reliable for in-state or nearby contacts - it’s too long.
73
KX0R
George