* On 2020 13 Jul 02:47 -0500, David Gilbert wrote: > > No, those other posts didn't say that.
Perhaps not directly. Preferences can always be strongly implied. I think it is inarguable that years back ARRL publications had a bias toward antennas that favored DX. DX is fine and perhaps that did keep more Novices in the ranks than would have otherwise stayed due to poor antennas. However, a low dipole antenna for the low bands was often derided as a "cloud warmer" without mention of why such an antenna might be useful. Perhaps it was the steady diet of Kurt N. Sterba in the now discontinued World Radio magazine as a Novice and Tech in the mid-80s that taught me that a low antenna on the low HF bands had a valuable use. I proved this to myself right at 35 years ago when I became active on the Novice bands and wanted to work the Kansas Slow Speed CW Net (QKS-SS). The vertical I had due to previously being convinced that I needed a DX antenna worked miserably for such close-in work as checking into a section net. I strung up a dipole that was almost too low and I was rewarded with very strong signals from within a few hundred miles on 80m. Working the section net was easy with that antenna. It wasn't until the quasi-military term Near Vertical Incident Skywave (NVIS) entered the amateur radio vernacular in the early '90s that "cloud warmers" became acceptable in literature printed in Newington. Denizens of low band section nets knew the secret decades before. Why do I use a K3 when over 90% of my operating time is spent on 75m nets these days? The QRM fighting features such as high and low cut with appropriate filtering and something about its receiver where I don't experience the fading other operators using other radios mention frequently. Perhaps it is my low doublet antenna that is overall a 3/4 wave on 75/80m that helps. > I don't know why some hams insist on fabricating controversy where there is > none. It seems like the bulk of our American society is determined to be as > tribal as possible. Sorry times we live in. There is a reason for that which is not apropos for this list. Suffice it to say that this has been the case for nearly the entirety of the existence of amateur radio and likely in other endeavors for centuries. A look at QST from the earliest decades show a bias toward traffic handling and as the shortwave spectrum was discovered slowly turned toward DXing. In later decades Emmcomm has assumed a greater stature while paradoxically traffic handling has almost been forgotten. Fact is that people will always have a bias toward their own interests. 73, Nate -- "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true." Web: https://www.n0nb.us Projects: https://github.com/N0NB GPG fingerprint: 82D6 4F6B 0E67 CD41 F689 BBA6 FB2C 5130 D55A 8819 ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
