I’m excited about the NA/EU S2S event coming up in November, and was hoping to get a bit of advantage by choosing an antenna with a bit more directionality and gain. I’ve built a Vee Beam, but there are few summits where I can easily erect the thing, and fewer still in late November. My next thought was a longwire antenna (say 5 wavelengths on 20 or 17m). I’ve read a few posts from others who have used longwire for SOTA, but am looking for any advice on setup I can get.
I’ll be using a KX2 with autotuner, but my plan is to add a 9:1 unun to help the tuner with range. 1/4 wave counterpoise (or counterpoises). I’ve been going without a station ground on SOTA so far. Should I try to make some provision for an earth ground? (might not be possible on the granite-topped summits, but I might look for a better summit if it would really help)
The hope is to have a summit with a tower for the operating position, with the far end of the longwire in the top of a tree. Obviously, this will slope downward, yet still be 12+ meters above the ground all the way along. That should put one of the lobes at a nice low angle off the end of the wire, right? Does anybody have any tricks for getting the wire over multiple trees? Seems like that might be a real pain.
Anyway, just thinking out loud here. Looking for anybody with experience or opinion on this approach.
Bruce - WB8OGK