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#1656
M0PWX
Participant

    GE Julian

    i don’t use ladder line but from what i have read it should be kept off the ground, and not attached to metal towers as where it is unshielded it is affected by metal and ground

    so should be ok on a fibre glass pole as its not conductive, some say the lightly put a couple of turns round a fibreglass pole to stop it flapping around

    the other thing is ladder line is normally a multiple of a 1/2 wavelength from what i have read, but if you have a complete kit including the ladder line it should be the right length

    most important thing is to check with an SWR Meter or VNA to tune it once in place, once in tuned use a mode like WSPR or FT8 where you get a db figure from the receiving station to get an idea of how well the Antenna is performing then try moving the ladder line to see if things improve or not

    one thing you will find is if you put WSPR into bandhop mode (you will need CAT control of your radio) you will see how the bands change between day and night, so any changes you make and use WSPR (or any other mode) to get a better idea of if a change toy your setup has a positive or negative effect try and compare results for similar conditions / time of day

    finally pay attention to the direction of your antenna, dipoles radiate sideways so the best option if you can is have it run North/South so the best signals are east / west so east will be EU / Asia / Australia and west is US / south america