When fishing not every lure or bait works well for everyone every time but
if you eliminate everything that isn't working 100% of the time for 100% of
the users what do you use, what is left?
Recommending against a Carolina Windom or off center fed dipole because
sometimes they don't work well for some people in some situations seems
overly limiting. Need a sure thing first time every time? Try AT&T and a
corded phone. an OCF dipole is just some wire 'n' stuff. Let folks try it
without bias and if it doesn't please them then... it is mostly just wire
and it can be used to try a different configuration. For some folks there is
more to our hobby than shouting "CONTEST CQ CONTEST" or bragging rights when
your StepIR up way over 100 ft driven by a full legal limit (+) amp lets
you break a pile up so you and someone where there aren't many hams can
shout 59 at each other.
Patrick AF5CK
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Brown
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2013 1:22 PM
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Off Center Fed Antennas
On 6/4/2013 9:54 AM, Bill Ogden wrote:
It might be fair to say there are more environmental considerations for
these antennas than for a simple dipole or quarter-wave vertical.
This is a good assessment, and is the basis for my advice to avoid them.
Those environmental considerations are primarily 1) the proliferation of
RF noise sources that the feedline then couples to the antenna, and 2)
the proliferation of electronic equipment (including ham gear) that is
susceptible to RFI.
Long wires that end in the shack and most verticals suffer from the same
issues, both because they are vertically polarized (and lots of noise is
vertically polarized), and because they are closer to noisy and
vulnerable equipment.
My point about these off-center fed antennas is that if you can rig one
of them, you could almost always rig a symmetrical antenna that will
work as well or better. And if you can rig a resonant antenna, it will
have a predictable pattern that you can make use of to get GAIN in one
or more desired directions.
73, Jim K9YC
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