The Battle Creek Special Antenna
The "Battle Creek Special" is a 3-Band-vertical Marconi-antenna for the bands 40m/80m/160m with a ground net of wires as radials. The antenna has two traps, for 40m and 80m.
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The Battle Creek Special was developped by K8GG, W0CD and
W8UVZ in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Many DX-peditions used this genious antenna with good results for the low-bands. On 40m it is a stretched lambda/4-vertical. On 80m and 160m it is working as an inverted-L with a vertical part, built with aluminium tubes and two inverted-L-parts with wires. The traps can be constructed with RG-213 coax-cable. As radials you should use as many as possible, lengths >=18m.
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The dimensions in the table below are only for experimenting, the antenna must be tuned for CW or SSB operation. l 1 must lengthened for best SWR on 40m, l 3 for 80m and l 4 for 160m. On all bands an SWR <1,8 must be available for operating with the built in pi-filter of a tube-amplifier.
| Part | Length | Function |
| l 1 | 9,70m, alu-tube | Full-Size 40m |
| l 2 | 4,57m alu-tube | ver. part for 80m/160m |
| l 3 | 7,10m wire | L-part for 80m |
| l 4 | 21,34m wire | L-part for 160m |