[TowerTalk] Antenna surface area

[Pete Smith]

At 09:11 AM 6/10/01 -0500, WA9ALS wrote:
...
>On a serious note, I don't think antenna manufacturers lie to us about stuff
>like wind surface area.  What's really more important than any one claim is
>whether antenna, tower, and rotator manufacturers are using the same methods
>to calculate surface area of the things that they are testing!  73

Agreed, but antenna manufacturers have a marketing interest in keeping
their numbers generous ("Sure, that'll go on your tower"), while tower and
rotator manufacturers have an interest in using the most conservative
numbers ("Well, you shouldn't have overloaded it, or it wouldn't have
failed").  They can use numbers that meet their differing needs, simply by
picking and choosing from the range of what's available.

What behooves us, as consumers, is to press for defined numbers so that we
can be sure we have apples vs apples, instead of apples vs oranges.

73, Pete N4ZR
No, no ... that's WEST Virginia





List Sponsor: Are you thinking about installing a tower this summer? Call us
for information on our fabulous Trylon Titan self-supporting towers - up to
96-feet for less than $2000! at 888-833-3104 <A HREF="http://www.ChampionRadio.com">
www.ChampionRadio.com</A>

-----
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/FAQ/towertalk
Submissions:              towertalk@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  towertalk-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-towertalk@contesting.com