TopBand: Gads, weird science again

[w8ji.tom]

Hi Bill,

It sounds like you compared some reasonably efficient antennas. L,B and E
would indicate about 3 dB down or so for your vertical, so that might be
about one S unit. I hope you kept your test blind, and did not say
"horizontal" or "vertical".

( No one knows what an S unit is, but in one series of 1,2 3 tests I threw
in a ringer of a 3 dB power drop. Most stations reported that as an S unit
and some reported "no change"!)
 
Here's what we do know for a fact.

1.) There isn't one of us who can measure polarity or wave angle on 160.
It's all just a guess with plenty of opinions and no proof of anything.
Because of that, we have no proof the problem is rooted in wave angle or
polarity.

2.) The problem might be as simple as some of us being unable to manage an
efficient vertical for whatever particular reason. It could be a question
of which antenna is less poor, rather than which antenna matches the
propagation mode we visualize in our heads.
  
3.) I'm not offering any answers. I'm just telling my test results. I have
nothing to defend because I offer nothing except my results.

4.) Measure the polarity, or the wave angle, and we will have a "better"
fact. Unfortunately, that is all but impossible on 160.

5.) I went through painstaking effort to have nearly ideal antennas to
compare. I think my results show the effect blamed on propagation might
likely be more one of antenna efficiency and wave angle.

6.) I fail to see what comparing one less than ideal antenna to another
less than ideal antenna proves, except which one is a less efficient
antenna.

73 Tom

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