Topband: tree losses

[donovanf at starpower.net]

It depends on what the measure of "much better" is. .. 

For many years US special forces have used field expedient long wire HF 
antennas close to the ground (i.e., Beverage antennas) pointed at the net 
control station to reduce the probability of being intercepted by opposing 
forces and to improve jam resistance and signal to noise ratio. 

73 
Frank 
W3LPL 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Mike Waters" <mikewate at gmail.com> 
To: "Tom W8JI" <w8ji at w8ji.com>, "topband" <topband at contesting.com> 
Sent: Monday, August 5, 2013 7:04:16 PM 
Subject: Re: Topband: tree losses 

Bingo! Just because the military does (or did) something with antennas 
doesn't means it's good for us all to repeat. 

There was a discussion some time back that a Beverage must make a good 
transmitting antenna, because the military does it somewhere. I can vouch 
for the fact that while we can indeed transmit on a Beverage and make 
contacts with it, a vertical with a few radials makes a *much *better TX 
antenna. 

73, Mike 
www.w0btu.com 

On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Tom W8JI <w8ji at w8ji.com> wrote: 

> ... the few feet of wire in the matching system is probably the major 
> radiator in the system ... Most of us already understand an insulated 
> copper wire thrown over a tree is a far better antenna than the tree could 
> ever be, and that removing the tree actually INCREASES field strength. The 
> logical conclusion is the tree is much more a dissipative load than an 
> antenna. After all, if a tree was even a marginally effective LF or HF 
> radiator, we would increases in field strength from reflections rather than 
> just absorption. 
> 
_________________ 
Topband Reflector