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[TowerTalk] Re: W4GL 20M 3 Element All Driven Array

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Subject: [TowerTalk] Re: W4GL 20M 3 Element All Driven Array
From: K7GCO@aol.com (K7GCO@aol.com)
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 13:19:18 EST
.
     Is anyone familiar with the 20M 3 element All Driven Array (FD elements 
of 4:1 step up ratio on a 24' boom) advertised by Dick Adcock W4GL in a 1952 
QST I think it was for one issue?  I have a copy of that advertisement.  This 
is one beam I want to know more about and will spend some time on it later. 
In the computer it holds it's pattern for over a MHz as no phasing lines are 
used and the amplitude and phasing stays the same as the frequency is 
changed.  He made it for 4 friends, they guarded it's details very carefully 
and it worked better than a 3 element parasitic yagi.  I and some others 
tried to get the details and there is a 
story I'll tell some time that defies the imagination as to the lengths some 
would go to copy and fake it.  A contest DXer who worked in a TV Antenna Lab 
was trying to pull a very clever scam back in about 1960 or so.  I smelled 
and cracked the scam much to his surprise.  I even had to stretch my 
imagination but the evidence was there. He had a letter from a well known 
authority verifying it's unusual performance, suckered in some friends and 
was about to some investors.  I provided the antenna hardware for a 20M 
version.  Yet I detected an error and a misstatement that the supposed author 
of the letter wouldn't make--he wrote the most authoritative Antenna Book 
ever.  I still have the letter.  The letter was forged by a clever writer 
English wise (eventual editor of a Radio mag) but not technically.  He also 
faked the school letter head and forged the authors name.  He even altered an 
FS meter to read higher and was a professional chronic liar on the par with 
Clinton.  I had never met a person like that before and wanted to believe his 
stories real bad.  Technically there were flaws that I saw and that the 
others would believe.  He had their mouths watering.  I had my "I told you 
so."  When confronted with the facts by W2KFA Gene Lombardi, he said "it 
sounds like Glanzer had something to do with it?"  I was on the other line of 
Gene's phone.  Gene and I called the supposed author of the letter and he 
asked "Mr Glanzer, why do you get hooked up with these guys?"  I said "they 
don't walk around with a sign on their chest warning you of them--you have to 
detect and expose their lies which I did."  Today more than ever one has to 
be a technical Dick Tracy as technical fraud exists everywhere.  There are a 
few honest ones and they get harassed even with the best product.  
      Is anyone familiar with the W4GL All FD Driven Array?  Why did he 
advertise only once?  What Zo phasing lines did he use and how long?  From 
the QST advertisement picture I'd guess the spacing at .15 D and .2 R.  
Please call me at 206 243 5174 or E-mail me.  I want to apply some of the 
same concepts to Quads.  Some have already with great results. 
K7GCO  Ken Glanzer  

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