Excellent post.
K0BG's "WORKs" acronym is spot on, and I consider any anecdotal
rationalization of any antenna to be without much merit. Without a
direct comparison anecdotes are simply anecdotes, and they do little to
advance the hobby.
I have my own example of an antenna that "worked" great ..............
once. It was the night before Field Day and for pure expediency I put
up a low, elongated rectangular loop fed on a vertical side. I modeled
it to be "usable" on both 20m and 40m (decent feed but marginal
pattern), and I worked an FR5 on the other side of the world from here
in Arizona on 20m with 5 watts on CW and Q5 reports both ways. I
thought I had a winner, but it subsequently turned out to give me one of
the worst Field Day scores I ever had.
I have no problem at all with folks who for whatever reason elect to go
with something that "works". I do have a problem with them promoting to
others it as being "good" without some supporting data other than "I
worked such and such".
73,
Dave AB7E
On 8/27/2020 7:04 PM, K8TE wrote:
It's refreshing to read something based on science! All of the anecdotes are
interesting, but nothing more. I would not jump on any of them without
reading scientific documentation comparing them directly to a half-wave,
flat top dipole at a half wavelength high, or as high as possible and
specified. Jim's point about the NVIS myth is well taken. Most of the
"literature" is bunk and with little to no backing in science.
I strongly promote using WSPRLite on two antennas simultaneously to
demonstrate the new antenna's performance over time. Those results have
meaning.
I worked an Italian station on 20m SSB using my KX3 at five Watts into a
mobile screwdriver antenna. that was in 2016 near the second peak of Cycle
24. Based on how others assert "This antenna works." I should pull my
dipoles down (283 DXCC entities from NM, mostly during Cycle 24) and just
use the mobile antenna.
Right! BTW, my friend Alan, K0BG, calls "WORKs" an acronym for "WithOut
Real Knowledge." He is probably right 80-95% of the time about that. So it
worked, but that doesn't make it good, better, or even worse.
Ward Silver, N0AX, wrote: "The best antenna is one that is in the air."
Kevin is trying to erect an antenna better than what he has now. Anecdotes
won't help him, IMHO.
73, Bill, K8TE
A low horizontal antenna has its place, for local work especially out to
a few hundred miles reliably. Horses for courses and all that.
That's an urban myth. A low horizontal antenna is very lossy, and has
much weaker radiation at ALL angles, including high ones. The origin of
the myth is that ARRL Antenna plots set the peak radiation to 0dB. But
when plot the vertical field strength for all heights on the same scale,
you get the family of curves beginning with slide 13.
Study http://k9yc.com/VertOrHorizontal-Slides.pdf
There is an optimum range of heights for high angle radiation, and it
isn't low. Slide 19 shows that the optimum height is about 55 ft on 80M,
and high angle drop by only 2 dB at 90 ft. Divide those heights by 2 for
40M.
73, Jim K9YC
--
Sent from: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/
______________________________________________________________
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]
______________________________________________________________
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]
