Yes, however ... a center-fed dipole long enough to be moderately close
to a half-wave at 40 will develop a serious case of acute lobe-itis when
operated at higher frequencies, squirting your RF in a variety of
directions, many of which may not be productive for your intended
objective. Try, as many have over the years, to design the "magic
antenna" that is very small, provides a 1:1 match on all bands, easily
installed, and exhibits good gain, your effort will inevitably fail. As
JC Maxwell is reported to have said, "Physics is physics, the rules are
unbreakable." A log-periodic will give very modest gain over an octave
or more, however LP's hardly fall into the Field Antenna class. [:-)
73,
Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County
On 10/10/2019 1:24 PM, Al Lorona wrote:
My experience with single vertical or sloping wires is exactly the same as AB7E's. I
have, over almost twice as many Field Days as Dave, come to a similar conclusion, with
the slight difference being my preference for an "all-band dipole" fed with
balanced line. This obviates the balun and reduces feedline loss to negligible, so
obviously I am maximizing efficiency at the expense of any other possible advantage. (I
can usually hear much better than I can be heard... so thus far this has been a valid
decision.)
To sum up what I and what I think Dave are saying, you can't beat a horizontal,
center-fed wire up as high as you can get it. Its simplicity, the flexibility
it gives you to QSY (with a good tuner), and its high efficiency are almost
unbeatable.
As a side note, the center-fed horizontal wire I have used here at home is
totally non-resonant. I don't even know how long it is. Once you give up the
obsession with resonant antenna length, you gain a huge freedom of choice.
In the bottom of the sunspot cycle, these advantages are somewhat reduced
because an op, especially on Field Day, might opt to forget about any band
higher than 20 meters -- and these days even 20 is questionable. This means you
can probably make do with coaxial cable and a balun for operation on 2 or 3
bands but the general idea still holds.
Al W6LX
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