Topband: [Bulk] Re: Phased short vertical receive antenna system

[Tom W8JI]

> Good info, Grant - the sort of concise "here's what I did that works" info 
> needed.
>
> 72, Jim R. K9JWV


Jim (and all),

Almost always, the warnings and guidelines for various systems depend on how 
conservative the designer or manual writer is. Things should never be taken 
as being "cast in concrete".

Part of this occurs because "works" is always subjective, what one person is 
happy with and thinks he set the world on fire with is never the same as 
what someone else is happy with.

Part of this is because installations have different things in and around 
the antenna that might bothering the antenna system. No two systems, unless 
they are out in the open over similar earth, act exactly the same.

This is why some companies sell 1/4 wave verticals, or worse 43 ft 
verticals, and promise the world with no radials or minimal radials, and why 
other companies might tell customers them need more radials.  It isn't that 
one antenna system of a similar style is necessarily less critical. The real 
reason is often that whoever wrote the instructions or advertising was more 
liberal or more conservative in claims or warnings.

There was a remark a week ago about an antenna system not being supposed to 
work with a house in the middle of the array. Whether a house bothered the 
array or not actually depended far more on the particular house and what is 
inside the house than it does on the array.

Unless a system is over open clear flat soil of a given type, bad things 
might sometimes happen. Since no one ever knows how a location or things in 
the location affect an installation, guidelines might wind up too 
conservative. Some guidelines can be far too loose.

I can say this, the DXE stuff is absolutely better...installation being 
equal. That doesn't mean it is always noticeable, or that something else 
won't work. Being better doesn't mean something else won't work almost the 
same, and it doesn't mean it will work the same. It just means better.

My K3 is far better than my Yaesu stuff for what I do. Doesn't mean I always 
notice it, or that someone else might ever notice it, and it doesn't mean 
someone else just hates Elecraft and loves the same Yaesu's I have.  :)

73 Tom