Topband: tree losses

[Tom W8JI]

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

While Beverage antennas for transmitting are indeed one example, two more 
good examples are:

1.) that silly Maxcom antenna tuner sold from Florida, the thing that had 
the chopped up pieces of circuit board inside
2.) stainless steel terminated folded dipoles

The problem with stuff like that is no one had actually quantified the loss, 
and even if they had, no one probably cared about signal levels. Just as 
long as they made contacts and the SWR looked OK, it was all "working".

The same type of thing is what sells those magical CB rings and the little 
dipole parasitic elements (about a foot long) that go on CB mobile antennas. 
Anecdotal evidence is that it all works, just like healing rocks and deer 
whistles for cars.  :)    It all has an effect that people "feel" or find 
useful, so it all works at some level.

73 Tom