I didn’t document fully last weekend that my 40m vertical experiment gave me a rather good match on 3.8Mhz. This gave me the idea of building a better 80m vertical this weekend by loading up both the vertical – and the radials. As I type this as I discover that first time up, I’ve achieved a resonance (of sorts) at 3.456 Mhz however, I’m not getting 50 ohms. The SWR is at best just under 2:1. I have reduced the legs of the radials a bit because of the loading coils (which all have 68 turns on my favourite 40mm plumbers pipe). I shall now adjust only the vertical coil. I know I should in theory adjust all the coils to keep them in unison however, the actual length of the radials is not precisely known; only that they are ‘about’ 9 meters plus a loading coil – and in any case I can just shorten the radials for fine tuning.

Here’s the resonant coil adjustment chart for the vertical coil:

• 68 turns: 3.456 Mhz
• 67 turns: 3.470 Mhz
• 63 turns: 3.535 Mhz
• 59 turns: 3.600 Mhz
• 55 turns: 3.690 Mhz (1:1 SWR dead)
• 54 turns: 3.691 Mhz (I tightened up the radials which had an adverse effect so that the resonant frequency hardly moved)
• 52 turns: 3.740 Mhz (SWR rising a whisker now)

I finished on 53 turns in the end. I’ve started keeping a couple of turns or more spare, never cutting off all the ‘dead ones’ as I take them off so I can wind them back on if I overshoot. My ‘best’ spot frequency is now 3.715 at 1:1 SWR with a 2:1 SWR curve starting at 3.6 and going all the way beyond 3.8. In fact, 3.8 has an SWR less than 1.5:1.