The following item is courtesy of Rudi Klos, DK7PE:
The Amateur Radio Station V55V in Namibia is known to have one of the biggest signals in the southern part of Africa. We were invited to visit this station and allowed to produce the above video about it.
For more than 20 years Martin, V51MW, has been improving his station and after having played around with all sorts of antennas, he had come to the conclusion that a Rhombic Antenna system would be the best to suit his needs – there is no space limitation!
The result is several Rhombic Antennas, two of which with 160-metre leg length (total length of 640 metres) are aimed at North America and the second one at Europe. A third one, “the small one”, has a leg length of 80 metres (total 320 metres).
Martin says that the gain of this system is extreme and, depending on the frequency, it outperforms his rotary antennas in the rhombics favoured direction.
V55V has been used for a large number of contests as well as for plenty of DXpedition activities during the past years.
When working NA or EU (40m to 10m) the signals were always louder on the Rhombic; that was what we also experienced during our visit.
After more than 20 years, Martin (age 80) and Ursi have decided to return to Germany for good and V55V will come to an end and will hence be history.
73, Rudi Klos, DK7PE
Video: https://youtu.be/j1tEs3G3sEY