Topband: Lab style comparison results on 160m small lot antennachanges.

[Tom W8JI]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Guy Olinger K2AV" <olinger at bellsouth.net>
To: "TopBand List" <topband at contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2012 7:25 PM
Subject: Topband: Lab style comparison results on 160m small lot 
antennachanges.


>A prior poster, lamenting the nature of FCP success reports, wrote:
>
> "Who has done that, with only a radial change, against an unchanged
> reference antenna that is in the far field of the antenna under test.
> [Where's the post with the details] ?"
>
> Perfectly logical question.  We all would like that answered with posts
> listing lab grade experiments.


Because of antenna size, laboratory measurements are impossible on lower 
bands. For that reason we can't make lab-style comparisons.

There is one thing, though, that we probably all agree on.

If more than one thing that can affect results changes in an unknown way in 
any test or experiment, like the ionosphere or reworking an entire antenna 
system from less-than-good system to a new one, we really don't know what 
caused the change or if any one particular thing was responsible for the 
change.

If we A-B against any unchanged reference, we at least know which was better 
than the reference and how much better. None of this requires a lab, precise 
equipment, is unreasonable, or is in the most remote way unfair. It just 
requires reasonable methods.

73 Tom