I can't believe that no one has put this really important question to bed
already.
Since the results vary with installation and soil, and since no one
considers "it depends" a good answer, the debate will never end.
If I had the land and an existing vertical with a large buried radial
system and another tower available.. I would try it out for the sake of
Ham Radio :-))
I've already done that using field strength readings. I'm sure others have
also.
P.S. Can someone with a tower also test out a low dipole around 30 ft and
then go to 60, 90 and 120 and post the results. I'm thinking a pulley
and rope and some quick 10 minutes adjustments for real world results...
that one's easy.
I already did that. I made thousands of A-B-C comparisons between high
dipoles, low dipoles, and a reference vertical. For a period of time I even
had two dipoles at 250 feet or so phased.
The problem is what works here for what I do can be considerably different
than other places and what someone else wants.
VK3ZL also compared a shorter vertical with a ~100-foot high dipole for a
long period of time. All of these tests were "blind" A-B tests.
The problem is results vary not only with the installation and location, but
also with the distance, time of day, and solar conditions.
Bob and I both pretty much settled on verticals, as did ZL3REX and others.
Anyone who has made extensive A-B comparisons likely gets a chuckle out of
"I took down an antenna and put up another one and it was XXXX difference"
statements. It takes a long time period of many direct A-B comparisons to
reach dependable conclusions.
73 Tom
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Topband Reflector
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