Top band, 160 metres, has always been my favourite band. However, a half wave aerial for the band will need to be 80 metres long, just over 262 feet. Not many of us have a garden long enough for such an aerial. As with most aerials, we have to compromise. Shorter lengths of wire will work but you will need a decent ATU, such as the Canadian VC300DLP pictured below. That shouldn’t present a problem. You will also need an earth system. See my page on RF earthing.
Pictured below is my Canadian ATU, the Cap.Co ATU, my homebrew RF ammeter and homebrew SWR meter, is a CB box, on the windowsill in the radio room. Hopefully, I won’t set fire to the net curtains with high voltage RF sparking! See details of the RF ammeter. Should you want to construct an RF voltmeter, details are on my RF voltmeter page. The antenna wire comes in through the window and is either connected directly to the Canadian ATU or, to the RF ammeter, the Cap.Co ATU and the SWR meter. Each set up feeds two different transceivers. With this arrangement, only a few inches of the aerial is in the room. The Cap.co covers from around 1MHz to 20MHz, which us great.
The set up has been updated to include two ATUs since making the video.
Watch the video here...