[TowerTalk] "Natural Towers"

[L. B. Cebik]

Both the Scotsmans Delight and the 1-element Rotary were Lew McCoy
articles in QST originally.  In those days, aluminum tubing was not a
hardware store item, so the 1-element rotary was made from electrical 
conduit.  I have modeled the Scotsman's delight, and while it had the
prescribed feedpoint impedance, it sacrificed gain and F-B to get it
compared to, say, Lewallen's Field Day Special in the 80s.  The arithmetic
of 2-element horizontal phasing was not as accessible then.  The 1-element
rotary was an exercise in one of George Gramer's favorite themes:  if you
gotta choose between doubling your elements or doubling your height, go
for the height, and be able to turn it.  For lots of newcomers, getting an
antenna above the house eaves was doubling your height.  And Armstrong was
the favorite brand of rotator for Novices.  I wonder how many Novices
remembered to varnish the bamboo that held the Scotsman elements.

Lots of these techniques, while primitive by today's contest station
standards, are good to recall for field and emergency operations.  An
emergency station does not have to be just a hank of wire tossed over a
tree limb--it can be a well thought out antenna with gain, F-B--or at
least movable directivity.

Remembrances are not only cozy, but often useful.

-73-

LB, W4RNL




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