Several months ago, someone on the Parks On The Air POTA Facebook page posed the question “Has anyone made a POTA activation on 160 Meters?” To be honest, I really haven’t given 160 Meters much thought, let alone for a POTA activation. So this got the wheels of thought churning in my head.
160 Meters is a unique band that covers the frequencies of 1800 – 2000 kHz. Its often referred to as the Top Band, not sure why, but it is. The biggest problem for me is the size of the antennas required. A classic Dipole antenna for 160 meters is approximately 246 feet. A full sized vertical is approximately 123 Feet. For most hams this is hardly practical – let alone for a POTA Activation.
Since my main POTA setup is with a 40 ft. Spiderbeam mast and a 35 foot wire hung from the top, I figured that would be my starting point. So obviously I would have to come up with some sort of shortened vertical antenna for 160 Meters. This made sense to me as I have had success building other shortened vertical antennas for my POTA activations.
My POTA station has an LDG Autotuner and all it needs is to have some sort of ground to work against, and a wire at least 1/4 wavelength long. What I do for POTA on 80 meters is have a coil that adds enough inductance to my 35 foot wire so that the autotuner “thinks” its tuning into a long enough wire. This works well for me, so I thought I would do the same for 160 Meters.
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