[TowerTalk] Antenna surface area

[J. Kincade]

I must respectfully disagree, John. I've seen them lie like a rug for years,
with the sole exception of Force 12. It comes from their being driven by
their sales and marketing departments, combined with the relative ignorance
(at least until the past few years) of their targeted market, namely us
hams. We have been easy ducks on the pond. :-) To a certain degree, since
the inception of gain antennas for ham use, we have been "marketed to" like
the CB'ers - many of whom believe they MUST have a whip for their 4 watt rig
that has at least a 5 KW loading coil, because the higher the power rating
of the loading coil, the further they can talk. Sad, but true. I do believe,
though, the worm has turned somewhat on antenna knowledge, at least among
the ham community. Don't see too many ads for tribanders with 13 db of gain
anymore.
73, Jerry

>
> 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
>



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