Hi Gerry,
I know this is often an uphill battle, but what the heck. Here comes
reality. Hang on!
> Guess what Robby ended up with?
"Ended up with" as this is the ultimate he tested in valid tests
when trying several things or.....
"ended up with" as in this where he started and stopped with
nothing in between??
> Four elevated radials on each vertical. 3.5 - 4Mhz coverage
> with SWR < 1.8:1. Excellent forward gain/FB on phone or CW.
> It is small 50ft tower sections with pipe on the top.
> Comtek box with 50-ohm coax to the verticals.
Was the bandwidth wider than predicted? If so, why would that be
a "good" indicator?
How was gain measured, and what was it in dB to some reference
at the same location?
> Will this work for you? Who knows. IMHO, take all inputs and then
> go with the solution that best works for you. Build and test, starting
> small.
How do you now what works best, without building several systems
and having them up at the same time?
If I install a single system, I have no way of A-B'ing the system
against anything else, and I might "feel" it works quite well when it
might be five or ten dB down.
Here's a true story:
I can remember going on 40 meters and "feeling" my antenna
worked just fine. I was beating people in pileups, and having large
numbers of DX stations calling me.
Imagine my surprise on one day when I looked up and saw I was
on a 160 dipole! I had no idea I was on the dipole that day, and was
happy as a pig in slop. Of course changing to the 40 meter yagi
brought my signal up at least 12 dB compared to a 160 dipole fed
through 1000 feet of mismatched coax. (SWR looks reasonable
because the system is lossy).
73, Tom W8JI
w8ji@contesting.com
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