Topband: Monopole Elev Pattern w.r.t. Earth Conductivity

[Tom W8JI]

> If we knew those, then we could calculate the location and distance of the
> signal hops. That might give us some insight as to why some people have
> found a taller monopole to be worse than a shorter one at a given 
> distance.

Back in the 70's or 80's there was speculation a low angle was lossy from 
grazing along, based on others having poor experiences with taller 
verticals. The top of my tall tower had some antennas and side arms which 
top loaded it a bit, but not much. Certainly the wave refracts gradually at 
a minimum, and so I think distance would not tell anyone much. There have 
been a host of theories since the 1960's, even some from Stew the real W1BB. 
:-)

I don't know what happens when it gets up in the soup, although people like 
K9LA should be pretty well versed on it. I only know things behave 
differently all the time, and what antenna generally works most of the time.

For example, at sunrise most of the time almost anything reasonably 
efficient works about the same here. It's more a matter of ERP at any 
not-too-low angle and any polarization.

73 Tom