Mike Morrow wrote:
Brian Mury wrote:
I would also like to see a comparison between the horizontal and
vertical antennas. I don't think the horizontal antenna would
necessarily beat the vertical - it depends on a few variables, a couple
big ones that come to mind being the height of the dipole and the
vertical's counterpoise.
Hi Brian,
HF verticals perform poorly without, as you mention above, a very good
counterpoise or ground plane. In temporary portable installations, that is
generally very difficult to obtain. But for a dipole, it's a non-issue
altogether.
I've never been able to get any vertical antenna (even a very expensive
Australian-made dummy load) to perform within several s-units of a half-wave
dipole that was up only about ten feet in side-by-side tests at a *temporary*
site.
Mike,
The nice thing about veritcals for backpacking is if you cannot find
trees they still work. Additionally you can get away with almost no
feed line if weight is a concern. As for the counterpoise situation, I
find stringing wires on the groung to be much simpler than stringing
them up in trees. I carry up to four 32' sections with me that form a
counterpoise against the veritcal element and often I can elevate the
groundplane for free (nearby scrub brush). Still not a "silver plated"
back yard but it seems to suffice. Now the real advantage of all that
wire is if I want a dipole, and can locate tree's, all I need do is add
a feedpoint to the center and I have it. Personally, if I have the
trees available I usually put up a full wave loop as it takes almost no
extra effort and works very well.
My best "vertical" experince involves a week of surfing on a 1 acre
island in the S. Pacific. A 20' vertical over a sandy atoll with 4
wire counterpoise, 64' long. In a few days I had worked 40 countries on
every continent . Of course this probably represents the best
counterpoise one can achieve.
another Brian - n6iz
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