Best antenna for down valleys or surrounded by hills.

[SuperNasty]

What is the best 11m vertical base antenna for down in hollows or in valleys, or surrounded by hills?

As far as verticals are concerned obviously a 5/8 wave with it's lower angle of radiation and mounted as high as possible has the most gain in normal circumstances, but I have read suggestions on other forums that 1/2 wave antennas like the Starduster or a 1/4 wave groundplane antenna with their higher angle of radiation can help get signals up and over the hills. The sirio top one was mentioned as been particular good for low lying land. I mean for general long distance ground wave contacts rather than skip condition contacts.

Also will purposely lowering a vertical antenna produce a higher angle which would help to get signals up and over the hills better or would this be counter productive?

Anybody down in the dales, welsh valleys or lowlands behind mountains have any experiences with finding the best antenna type for these locations.

[radiovic]

Move house!!

[Yeti]

One that's higher than the hills would be ideal

[ChickenMadras]

Anybody down in the dales, welsh valleys or lowlands behind mountains have any experiences with finding the best antenna type for these locations.

"You can't polish a turd"
I suggest you go mobile and drive / cycle to the top of one of those hills instead.

[NITRO]

I live almost on the top of a mountain and there are mountains and vallys everywhere... i use a 5/8 wave sigma venom vertical mounted so the tops about 10 foot above the roof top ... on muppits band i can get around 15 to 20 miles clear and have quite clear rx signal on other bands
hope this helps

[The Collector]

I live with the same problem, in a dip surrounded by hills. The trouble is that the hills cut out your horizontal signal somewhat meaning most of your signal goes upwards even more than it does already.

Getting a smaller wavelength antenna my make things better or worse for close-by communication,so perhaps see if you can borrow one before you buy one and waste money. If a smaller one is better for local contacts, you could always put up both aerials and switch between them if you could do it that way?

By highering the aerial, the angle should come down slightly over the hills (line-of-sight sort of thing), but you'd need to higher it by perhaps hundreds of feet to clear the hills properly as Yeti said. If I put my Antron up here where I am, I bet I coudn't get to Portishead very well (if at all), even though it is only about 3 miles away because it is up and over the hills and down steeply on the other side, but I bet I could reach South Wales a lot better which is about 6-7 miles away as my signal isnt so "shielded" and has more time to bounce around a bit and get down. Get the biggest aerial as high as you possibly can is probably the best bet, a nice Sigma 4 or Ham Int. Big Mac would do nicely (P.S. if you do happen to come across 2 Big Mac's, I'll have the other one )

[Mudslinger]

I am in a valley, although the surrounding hils are a few miles away.

I found that the usual rule of thumb with antennas, that bigger is better worked fine with me.

On groundwave the stations recieved me better on a 5/8 wave than on a 1/2 wave.

On skip, it didn't seem to make much difference.

[ChickenMadras]

Getting a smaller wavelength antenna my make things better or worse for close-by communication

eh?

[madman1027]

higher angle of take off to get over the hills

[chazwozza]

skip is skip your either in the zone or not

As for the hill lower angle would still be better than a higher one

[Yagi3]

Hi i see you mentioned the sirio top one, i fitted one up recently for a friend, i don't live in a hilly area but i can definately tell you these antennas work brilliantly for local and dx. I too have looked at the US forums with reviews of these antennas and they reckon to work very well in the valleys.

I can recomend the top one as they recieve and get out very well, but you don't see many probably down to high price and gimmiky looks but saying that they don't seem to catch the wind, are well made and have a very broad band width. They also radiate from the very top which is a bonus when height is crucial.

[PoisoN]

Sirio vector 4000

[FREEBAND BOB 26MS37]

The tallest one you can get up in the sky. Higher is better.

[wa10]

for just dx you could try a horizontal dipole, feed it with a 1:1 balun or coaxial choke and play with the height above ground, it should give you more gain than any cb vertical up at about 25 degrees when you get it the right height above ground and its inexpensive to try ( higher is not better )

if local talking is of interest the old style vector 4000 will get you over hills better than anything else available today on the same mast height at any price ( higher is better )

[M3HIM]

If you are going to end up using a home brew wire antenna, have a look on this forum for threads related to inverted V antennas and look up the characteristics using your favourite search engine too. Directionality and angle of radiation with a sloping inverted V might help your situation.

I had an Avanti AV-101 Astroplane, now available as the Sirio Top One, 30 years ago and had great results operating from my parents' house. The house is at sea-level and there are no hills around (the Dublin and Wicklow mountains are visible but quite a distance away). The Astroplane / Top One has a top hat which, in theory keeps the angle of radiation low, boosting ground wave and suppressing sky wave. That wouldn't help in getting your signal out of the valley, so probably not your best option. My experience with the Astroplane would suggest that the ground wave travelled quite a distance until the curvature of the earth caused it to bounce off the ionosphere giving me longer DX but I have no scientific research top back that up.

I wish I had it now! My brother took it down some years ago and put it in my parents' garage from where my father took bits to stake plants in the garden. I think the rest of it ended up going to the recycling centre or a scrap metal dealer.