Fw: Re: [TowerTalk] News from Bencher

[KI7WX@aol.com]

>I believe the recent trend towards more truthful gain claims from Cushcraft 
and possibly others, >is a direct result of Force 12 and M2 being there. 

I think this is much too generous a statement.  IMHO what forced antenna 
companies to make less exaggerated statements about gain is the easy 
availability of good computer modeling which can be run on the average ham's 
desktop computer.  Brian, Lew, Roy and others deserve much credit for that. 
Although we all recognize that the predictions are not necessarily what you 
get in the real world, the ability to compare antennas under the same 
conditions in silico provide a decent idea of what will happen and that has 
been a wonderful addition to our station building endeavors.

The next step in the right direction is for antenna companies to make their 
models freely available to anyone that wants to use them for comparison 
purposes. Hy-Gain did this years ago and Mike at M2 has sent me every model 
I've ever asked him for. Others have been less helpful.

>Force 12 has obviously stimulated competition in the marketplace. We all 
benefited!

You might want to check with the guys that were at Dayton talking about 80M 
beams or others that spent their youth trying to tune a 40M section of a C4 
tribander before you get too carried away with the "all" part....:-)

More seriously, from my biased perspective of life I'm not sure we've all 
benefited from what has happened in the antenna marketplace over the last few 
years. There are fewer choices today for commercial antennas than there were 
when I first became interested in station building, there is a smaller 
selection of HF antennas for the serious dude, and prices are on the rise. I 
would certainly agree that in the small tribander world F12 has done a very 
good job of providing products that people want and that is great too. 
 
Cheers,

Mark
KI7WX


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