Actually getting them to loops, or just about anything else horizontal is a big
challenge. I wonder how many people have tried getting on the weak signal ends
of the V/UHF bands with their DC-daylight radios into a 2M/70cm dual band
vertical and were not able to work anything. They then think that is what life
on these bands are like. And they fail to comprehend that they have put
themselves at a 20dB disadvantage right out of the gate. And throw in some poor
coax and it gets even worse.
It is so hard to get people to comprehend that the first 30 dB or so of RX/TX
performance improvement over those FM verticals on the weak signal freqs comes
pretty easy and pretty cheap. It is the next 10 dB after that which gets more
expensive and difficult.
Duane
N9DG
--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 9/16/13, John Geiger <af5cc@fidmail.com> wrote:
The recent discussion about VHF
contest activity has got me wondering about
a different phenomenon which we experience in my area, one I
can describe
as "Yagiphobia". Being that my background is in
psychology, I spend way
too much time studying and trying to understand
behavior. This is one that
has my stumped.
Almost every neighborhood in my town has no CCRs. You
can put up pretty
much antenna antenna you want as long as the tower doesn't
go about 35 feet
or so, and you can even get waivers for that rule.
However, when hams in
my area get into VHF weak signal work, very few of them want
to use a beam
or yagi. It seems that everyone is entranced with the
horizontal loop for
VHF/UHF, and so they put those up. Not hearing much
activity, they pretty
quickly give up and conclude that no one is on the VHF
bands.
Now I don't understand this obsession with the loop.
Yagis for 2m and
above are very small, cheap, and can be turned with a TV
rotor. They don't
require large towers, lots of guying larger rotors, and
stuff that HF
antennas can require. They offer a huge performance
advantage over a
non-gain loop antenna. Even a 3 element beam for 2m
can be had new for
less than $60, which is probably less than what a new loop
costs, and will
greatly outperform it. TV rotors can be found very
inexpensively today. I
recently bought 2 used ones for $20 each. Both work
fine, although 1
required a paint job, which was free since I had some old
paint in the
garage.
If you do much looking you can usually find used 2m or 70
beams for less
than $50 each.
Does anyone else experience Yagiphobia in there area, and
what is the
driving force behind it? How do you get hams out of
its mindset? I can
understand it on HF, but VHF, I just don't get it.
73 John AF5CC
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