Non-scientific observation: I'm located about 500 ft. from a narrow
inlet north of me about 500 feet across. I've noticed that my
horizontal wire antenna located ~20 feet above ground (sloping a bit
toward the water, ~60 above sea level) performs much better than I
expected toward the north (it was only intended to be a quick and dirty
way to get on the air after moving into the house before I had a chance
to install some permanent antennas). When I lived in the AZ desert, I
found that dipoles at the same height weren't very effective (but were
about all I could install without running afoul of the CC&R
stormtroopers).
I'm about to install a couple of verticals (MFJ 1793, ground mounted
and Hy-Gain AV-640 at 15 ft.) The ground mounted vertical will be ~15
ft. from my property line, so the radials will be somewhat assymetric,
but ground conductivity is fairly good (my neighbor has a spring which
outflows about 50 feet away). It will be interesting to see how they
compare, both to each other and to the horizontal wire (which I will
probably remove if testing indicates it has no clear advantage).
Bob Nielsen, N7XY
Bainbridge Island, WA
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