[TowerTalk] Multiple antennas-- offpointed stacks

[Bill Tippett]

N2EA wrote:
 >my feeling has been that splitting and offpointing a stack has
had compromised results.  I wonder what others have observed.

         My 10m 3-stack has antennas 1 wavelength apart.More often than not 
I used 2 in one direction and the
third in an orthogonal direction (e.g. 2 to EU + SA/LP
to AS in AM, or 2 to JA + OC in PM).  Between run periods
I would often use all 3 in different directions for S&P
(e.g. one on EU/AF, one on SA and one on OC).  When I
found something to work, I would switch to that antenna
alone.  If the pileup was huge, I added a 2nd or maybe
all 3 if necessary.

         In mainly domestic contests like the ARRL 10m,
I often used all 3 in different directions.  Often
I would get some very strange effects with weak
backscatter NA signals.  I would hear a station, select
the antenna favoring that direction, and it would then
disappear on any one of the three and only be audible
with some combination.  Backscatter is often in odd
directions and it was not unusual to be opposite direct
bearings.  Is that why it's called BACKcatter?  :-)

         There is a LOT to properly taking advantage of
a 3-stack that can only be learned by experience.  It
took me a season before I felt I mastered mine.

                                                 73,  Bill  W4ZV