New Antenna at the House. This weekend I am putting up a new vertical antenna. This one will be at the NE corner of the house, screened from the front and east side by some trees. We don't want to upset the neighbors. Bought it second-hand from Joe.

This is not the beam antenna that I was working on last weekend. Still working on that one. The new vertical will give us three ham antennas up and functioning on or about the roof of the house: (1) inverted vee dipoles, center fed with a single coax transmission line, one dipole for 40m and one for 20m, (2) a uhf/vhf vertical for 2m and the 440 band, and (3) the new vertical, which covers 40m, 20m, 15m, 10m, 6m, and 2m (so many bands on one antenna, so cool).

As you can see, there is some duplication, especially between the dipoles and the new vertical. The dipoles tend to horizontal polarity and have a higher angle of radiation. The vertical is vertically polarized and has a lower angle of radiation. I don't know that polarity makes much difference after the RF refracts off the ionosphere. The lower the angle of radiation, however, the further the skip. (For example, if the angle of radiation were straight up, the refraction would send the RF right back to our location.) Because I can switch antennas from inside the shack, I should be able to see if there is any difference and under which conditions the difference occurs.

Exciting stuff, no?