Topband: Comparison testing

[Tom W8JI]

This reminds me of an experience I had with a new antenna.  After working 
several days installing a new antenna, I attached it to an a/b switch to 
compare it with my old antenna. I was delighted, the new antenna was always 
better !!!  Then to my dismay I saw I had the switch reversed ... oh boy... 
I changed the feeds, and continued the test.  Guess what.. the new antenna 
was still always better.
Lesson learned .... human nature and switching antennas in face of QSB.>>>

There is more truth to that than most of us realize.

I put up a G5RV about 100 feet in the air, and I used a pretty good 
feedline. Doing tests against a dipole on 75 meters, the antenna I called a 
"G5RV" would almost always get a worse report than the antenna I called a 
"dipole", even during the times when I called the antennas by the opposite 
names of what they really were.

When I would do a test using "antenna 1" or "antenna  2", they were almost 
even.

The most extraordinary thing was with a good friend who just absolutely 
hated G5RV antennas. He would say "your audio sounds worse on the "G5RV" " . 
This was true even when I called the dipole a G5RV, or didn't change 
antennas at all and just said I was changing.

 I really think this is why I installed a 300-foot tower just so I could 
have a high dipole. I "distinctly remembered' how well a 300-foot high 
dipole I had worked, and I wanted another one. After I installed the dipole 
here and compared it to a vertical and other antennas for a year or two, I 
finally remembered how well my old 1/4 wave vertical worked.  :)

This was eye opening to me.

73 Tom