[CQ-Contest] Rappin'

[Ktfrog007 at aol.com]

In a message dated 2015-09-05 7:46:12 P.M. Coordinated Universal Tim,  
jamesdavidcain at gmail.com writes:

Hi Dave,  I recognized that antenna right away, it's a Larson E. Rapp model 
from  sometime in the early 1960s. Rapp wrote occasionally and suspiciously 
for the  QST magazine for some years but QST seems to have disowned him. As 
a Novice  operator in 1962 I remember sending a cheque to Kippering-on-the 
Charles,  Massachusetts, but it came back Addressee Unknown. Rapp 
Enterprises was  allegedly associated with the Original Carton Company, also an April 
issue QST  advertiser, Perhaps Rapp decamped to Denmark.  

K1TN


Larson, sometimes Larsen, was ahead of his time, or perhaps behind, or  
perhaps out of time or out of his mind, or just out there.
 
When I was a young lad in 1957 and got interested in amateur radio, I would 
 go to the Goshen, Indiana Public Library and read QST magazine.  Once in a 
 while I understood something.
 

In the April 1957 issue I ran across an article on very compact HF antennas 
 by one Larsen E Rapp which interested me.  Part of the article dealt with  
the underground image of an above ground antenna, found by following the 
ground  reflection back to a point directly under the antenna, as far below 
ground as  the antenna was above.  Larsen's idea was to bury the compact 
antenna at  that point under ground with its image being up in the air.  Further  
testing of this showed some strange properties, like reversal of sidebands 
(my  reinterpretation now of what he said then).
 
The deeper you buried it, the better it worked as the image climbed  higher 
and higher in the air.  He had to stop when he hit bedrock.
 
Toward the end, he said, "This sketchy (!!!) report is offered to the  
amateur fraternity in hope that some of the remaining parameters will be  
determined."  (My emphasis)
 
Well, I was 15 and not even a Novice, and all this seemed a bit strange to  
me, but there it was in the official ARRL publication.  In writing.   In 
black and white.  I remember going back to read and reread the article  
several times but I never could come to a conclusion about it.
 
In 1958 when I got my Novice ticket, I put my antenna up in the air.   
After all, it was in February and the ground was frozen.
 
Somewhat later I found Larsen not entirely on the up-and-up.  I'd been  
snookered.
 
But Larsen lives on, though he must be quite elderly, as inventive as ever  
and keeping up with the times.  Just this year he announced his new  voice 
skimmer technology.   The kinks are still being  worked out but I'm sure 
you'll see it any day now.
 
73,
Ken, AB1J, ex-KN9LIO