I will be putting a G7FEK into my garden soon.

The position i will be mounting it will be about 25ft above a farmers fence boundary running parallel with my antenna, and from what i can tell its a single piece with no joins.

Could this be detrimental or beneficial as a reflector. The barbed wire run is about 200ft long and the antenna will be about 1/3rd of the way along it, which will end up with both sides of the antenna being shadowed by this fence.

My QTH is 550ft asl and South, North and West are unhindered with views all around, with the antenna running east west to radiate north-south.

Any advice would be appreciated.

If you are mounting the FEK 25ft above the barbed wire run, and the antenna works against earth, you could use the run as a counterpoise

Cheers for the reply.
I have two positions i can mount this in my garden. As a rule........generally how far offset can a reflector be? If the fence is 2m left or right of directly under it, but parallel with it, will that cause directional gain in some part, or will it just reduce the efficiency of the reflector with the antenna? Just a thought.

The barbed wire run will act as an elevated counterpoise if you connect the braid to it, just like when you throw out quarter wave plus lengths on the surface to enhance the earth. Its there so give it a go - I've used a FEK and its kind of soso, but its small and does not need to be too high which are bonuses.

As Dave has said don't think reflector think radial. It's already there for you to try, you've got nothing to lose.

Did you do it - how did it work out?

Not yet.....been getting my garage converted here for shack.......stud walls, plasterers etc......I am going with a doublet over the fence. I have enough space so a FEK seems a comprimise.

I will update when i do.......

I tried the FEK and it was a big big let down to be honest although I did the version with no counterpoises but still it was crap, and in the end I made my own OCF fed with random 450 into a 4-1 and it worked a treat.

My 'FEK' works quite well. I suffer from a lot of noise here but my signal going out is quite good I am told so for me it helps me get on 80 meters in a small garden and I use an earth rod and counterpoises. I would definitely try using the fence as a counterpoise, try a test with it connected and then without. Nothing to lose but maybe something to gain.
Good luck with it.

Of course Den try it why not....I did clip on some temporary counterpoises but they had little effect on the vswr readings which were tunable but I came to the conclusion it was inefficient for me.
After studying the design a good ground and radial system would have been more beneficial for it but I just went off on one and built a OCF