Topband: tree losses

[Mike Waters]

On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 2:54 PM, ZR <zr at jeremy.mv.com> wrote:

> Youre unfairly throwing a huge spin on it Mike.


Am I? Okay. Sorry. :-)



> If the military or a government agency does it, it could be an experiment
> or a purpose built project where the alternatives werent adequate or too
> expensive.
>

Nothing at all wrong with an experiment. But ONE of the things I was
thinking of (but didn't mention) was a publication by the military (about
transmitting on a Beverage) that clearly showed it wasn't anything of the
kind. I can't find it right now. Perhaps they did use multiple Beverages,
and perhaps what they did was the right thing for what they needed. But is
it for us 160m operators? I think not.


An array of phased Beverages has a very narrow azimuth lobe and a
> controllable elevation lobe plus a high F/R. You phase enough of them and
> you have actual gain in +dB over a wide bandwidth for point to point
> communications. Not easy to do with a vertical.
>

I agree. Is that what you used when you transmitted on a Beverage?

But I think most of us don't have phased Beverages. I assumed that everyone
would understand that I was talking about a single Beverage that the
majority use on Topband (like my 580' ones).

But the real point of the original post was the phenomenon of increasing
foliage attenuation at 160 meters (more so that 80m, 40m, etc.) and later,
using trees as radiators (which I think is ridiculous).



> It is similar with tree antennas. The military does it for a reason and it
> works for that specific purpose. Yet you will always have someone spinning
> that all around on here for whatever reasons.
>

I thought that my point was that the major radiator is the WIRE going to
the tree, and NOT the tree itself.



> Thats the problem with web sites that are not peer reviewed and
> misinformation is repeated forever if the author wont admit to an
> error....some never will.
>
> Understand now?
>

What I understand is that valid measurements need to be made. But as you
said, nothing wrong with sharing anecdotal info (which was the basis for my
original post). It's interesting about the dying foliage near an antenna,
but (of course) that doesn't mean we can expect to use a tree as an antenna.

Maybe I need to stop writing such short posts, and describe everything in
detail, and include every possible scenario when I make a statement. :-)

73, Mike
www.w0btu.com