Peter,
I'll leave the theoretical discussions to you, Tom, and others; my comments
address only claims, performance, customer satisfaction, and implied ethics
(or lack thereof). See below:
----- Original Message -----
> Yes, I understand that, but my point is that advertising the antenna as a
5
> bander opens up the opportunity to do the same thing for virtually any
> antenna as anything at the end of a coax will radiate on 20-10 mtrs.
It doesn't matter to me, as a consumer, whether a product functions as the
result of a rigorous design process or because of serendipity. Before I
bought my C4 I spent some time at the F12 website. My perception of the
C3/C4 gained by reading their advertising, their catalog and their much more
complete website was that the WARC band performance was serendipitous, and
adequate but not a whole lot better than a dipole. I percieved, on the basis
of their own advertising, that I would get high performance on 10, 15, and
20; and in addition, usable performance on two of the WARC bands. I didn't
have dipoles for those bands, nuch less rotatable ones. I now have an
antenna with three high performance bands and two relatively lower
performing bands. That adds up to five, not counting the 40 meter dipole (I
bought a C4). Would you say that my C4 should be advertised as a three-band
antenna because the 40 meter portion is only a dipole?
> F12's advertising should be questioned a little more in my opinion, people
> think they buy an antenna for 5 bands when they don't.
I knew exactly what I was buying, because F12's information was complete and
candid, including the relatively lower gain and F/B figures for the WARC
bands. Perhaps you should investigate their website "a little more", or ask
for their catalog before flaming.
> F12 sell a tribander
> that is "forced" to run on WARC-bands, with properties that are so poor
> that the antenna even shoots the other way on one band.
My antenna rotates. I simply point the back of the beam on 17 M. I recall a
number of classical gain antennas that were designed to fire one way for one
band and 180 degrees opposite for the other. Serendipity or design, in this
case? It doesn't matter, unless you're eating sour grapes.
> Anyone else advertising like they do would be flamed, but they get away
> with it. Question is why..
Because they MET their advertising claims for me and clearly for LOTS of
others, who are happy to provide positive recommendations. My antenna works
as advertised. Sorry, Peter; I am delighted with the performance of my 6
(actually 7 since it works well on six meters, too...) band C4!
Chuck, N4NM
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