Towertalk
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [TowerTalk] elevated short vertical dipole orquarterwave monopole?

To: "Tom Rauch" <w8ji@contesting.com>,"Guy Olinger, K2AV" <olinger@bellsouth.net>,"TowerTalk" <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] elevated short vertical dipole orquarterwave monopole?
From: Jim Lux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 14:17:20 -0800
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
At 11:10 AM 12/3/2004 -0500, Tom Rauch wrote:
> > The basic sleeve principle is proven at VHF, but the
practicalities at
> > HF overwhelm it, and one is left with all of Tom's
objections.

Actually it is pretty well known among antenna engineers
that the decoupling isn't very good.

The fact decoupling isn't good is what gives rise to the
coaxial skirt collinears.

Cheap low-gain VHF and UHF systems more or less just live
with the flaws in systems. Take for example a 1/4 wl
groundplane with four 1/4 wl radials. The common mode on the
feedline causes substantial pattern distortion. End users
live with it largely because what they don't know isn't a
problem. The feedline is long enough there is no RF problem
back "in the shack".

Now think about this....
Popular rumor that popped up a few years ago was that two
radials were enough on a groundplane, yet if you actually
look at the system 4 isn't enough for a clean pattern
without using some additional forced decoupling!

The pattern effect is there, we just don't have the RFI
problems.

> Of course, one could just let the coupling happen, and
deal with its effect
> . Say you're building a phased array, and perhaps (?) one
could change the
> phasing to compensate.

The problem with allowing the system to have common mode at
HF are the unpredictable results.


Unpredictable in the design sense, but probably reasonably stable, once installed. With a sufficiently sophisticated phasing system, one can probably cancel the effects sufficiently. However, I'm not sure how you'd go about actually doing the adjustments. The usual "current probe on the element" strategy wouldn't work. One could adjust on the basis of incoming signals using any of a variety of adaptive array techniques, but that might leave you with huge peaks or nulls in places that you couldn't predict.





I really think the number one shortfall in amateur antenna
design is not understanding or dealing with feedlines and
common mode currents properly. The problem is there over a
broad range of products, from log periodics that tell users
to route feedlines along a hot balanced boom to no or poor
counterpoise verticals. I'm sure it includes most vertical
dipoles.

I think it's mostly the whole thing of any antenna design sold in a "mass market" sort of way (i.e. at retail) is going to embody some amount of compromise, both in terms of installation tolerance, expected performance (which itself can be defined a lot of ways), and so forth.



_______________________________________________


See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.

_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>