[Amps] [Moon-net] Major breakthrough with regenerative yagi.

[Dr. David Kirkby]

Bob Sutton wrote:
> I checked the calender to make sure it was not 01 April.  This posting would have been more appropriate on that date ...
>  

It may have been sent as a joke, but perhaps it was not. Both myself and 
Leif (SM5BSZ) gave it some attention. Perhaps we were both fooled, but 
perhaps you are mistaken too.

I've come across a lot of hams in my time who *genuinely* believe they 
have some magic method which makes a great antenna, super sensitive 
receiver or some other such thing. As an scientist/engineer, I often 
laugh to myself about their ideas, but I know they genuinely believe them.

At a club I used to belong to, someone came along one night with this 
loft antenna design, which needed wires of this length going at this 
angle, and wires of another length at some other angle. It just looked 
like a random mess to me. His mate had shown him the antenna, so he 
decided to  build one, worked some DX, so was convinced it was a great 
antenna.

When I asked the basis of it, he had not a clue. Nobody had modeled it, 
or done anything. I suspect his mate just strung a wire around to fit 
his loft space, found it worked and believed it was the best antenna going.

The guy at my local club managed to convince other hams to take careful 
note of all these critical dimensions and angles. How many built them I 
don't know.

As much as I might laugh at some of these ideas, I find them more 
interesting than the ham who

* Goes to a retailer and buy the latest all-signing, all-dancing gear on 
a credit card

* Gets the shop to put the connectors on the cable for them, as they 
can't solder.

PS

For what it is worth, when I was a lot younger I had this idea to make 
free electricity. One had a motor and dynamo (generator) connected via a 
belt. One powered the motor up, which turned the generator, which made 
enough power to power the motor and some extra you could use. Once it 
was started, it kept going.

I was convinced it would work! I'm not sure how old I was when I had 
this idea, but I know I would have known it was fundamentally flawed by 
the age of 16. Antennas are a lot more complex to understand properly 
than the simple generator/motor idea of mine.