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Re: [TowerTalk] . Re: 2006 Top Ten Chutzpah Awards

To: "Keith Dutson" <kdutson@sbcglobal.net>,"'Bill Ogden'" <ogden@us.ibm.com>, <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] . Re: 2006 Top Ten Chutzpah Awards
From: Jim Lux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 17:07:47 -0700
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
At 11:11 AM 8/23/2006, Keith Dutson wrote:
> >It is simply not true that a larger antenna transmits better than a smaller
>one.
>
>That's a pretty broad statement to make.  If so, how come all the big guns
>use very big antennas?

Tradition, mostly, which drives availability in the ham market.
Convenience and cost effectiveness for a particular system application also 
drives it.
Small granularity for adding to the system (you can wind up with a stack of 
3 antennas by buying one at a time spaced out in time, as budget allows).
Ease and predictability of system design (e.g. cost and schedule risk)

If one had an unlimited budget and some time for experimentation, one could 
do better than the existing things that are available, and likely the 
antenna itself would be physically smaller.  The problem is that the value 
of "doing better" is substantially lower than the available development 
budget, and, there's no guarantee of success (particularly as a commercial 
concern).

The other factor driving to tall antennas is the advantage you get from 
height above ground, particularly in the ham "legal power limit" 
context.  You can't afford to give up the "ground reflection gain" by going 
low. Someone operating without a power limit wouldn't be faced by this 
issue, which is essentially "antenna" independent (but not "tower 
independent")...

The fallacy is in comparing BIG antenna on BIG tower to SMALL antenna on 
rooftop.  It's the BIG tower vs Rooftop that's the killer, not the physical 
antenna size.






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