Fw: Re: [TowerTalk] News from Bencher

[Dave]

Natan Huffman wrote:

> Pete and all,
>
> If you review our literature in a comparison to other manufacturers, you
> will see that our gain claims much less than our competitors.  A
> sophisticated buyer of an antenna can "wade through" the mire of inflated
> and untruthful ad copy, but, the a large part of the buying public will buy
> based on ad claims.  If we were to include our verified gain claims in
> advertising in QST and NCJ, our "lower" gain numbers would reach a greater
> audience.  A customer may well look at our numbers and then compare our
> numbers to a catalog or web page of one of our competitors where the
> customer sees our products have "less gain" than others.  We have position
> with the sophisticated buyer, but Joe Six-pack makes his decision based on
> what he sees in the catalog or another magazine such as CQ.
>

Ahem...I own a brewery and I like good beer so you might call me a "Joe
Six-pack". However, in as much as I like and believe in Force12 antennas, I
still wish the gain and vswr specs were "truer". What I mean here is that
Force12 continues to specify antenna gain at the antenna feedpoint and vswr with
100' of RG-8 thrown in between the measurement device and the antenna. This will
of course improve the vswr numbers because about 1dB of loss is being added to
the system. That's probably about equivalent to adding traps to the system. You
can't have it both ways; either the antenna gain and swr should be specified at
the antenna feedpoint, or if you must, specify them both at the feedline input,
with the associated1dB gain hit. Quite frankly, if commercial manufacturers
specified their antennas that way, they would be laughed right out of business.

73,
Dave
K0QE


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