In message <005f01c0b793$06b3dc20$0300a8c0@cruncher>, Guy Olinger, K2AV
<k2av@contesting.com> writes
>F12 is making those antennas hand over fist. C3SS and Z3's are the big
>sellers. I can count the dropped piece accounts here (not to discount
>them at all) on my fingers. F12 has what, ten thousand, twenty thousand
>antennas out there? I have heard a lot more stories about F12 surviving
>bad ice loads and springing back to original form.
That's like taking a census of 100 people, getting two negative
responses and then saying that only two people in the entire population
has this opinion (instead of 2 per cent).
F12 may have 10-20,000 antennas out there, but there are only 1500 or
1600 people on this reflector (correct?). Of those, lets be generous
and say a quarter have a F12 antenna (I doubt if that many have). So,
out of that sample of 400 F12 owners we are seeing up to 10 failures. A
1:40 failure rate doesn't really inspire confidence. And, I would say
that the people on this reflector are probably the more competent
antenna builders (they certainly have an above average interest if they
are here).
I have personally only seen four installed F12 antennas and three of
those have had failures of one type or another. The one that hasn't
failed is a C3(something) at about 35ft. The ones that have failed are
a Magnum340, a 5BA and a C4-something. From that, I *could* say that
3/4 of F12 antennas will fail, but that would be a pretty stupid
statement as it's not true. To get accurate results, you need a larger
sample.
Andrew Williamson GI0NWG / AC6WI
Homepage = http://www.gi0nwg.freeserve.co.uk/
One of the ZL9CI gang
http://www.qsl.net/zl9ci/
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