[TowerTalk] C31XR versus SteppIR

[Bill Parry]

Come on guys, calm down.

I knew the second that someone mentioned the C31 and the Steppir in the same
e-mail, we were going to war AGAIN! Both of these antennas are fine. Buy
what you want. This emotional investment in pieces of radio gear is
bordering on a fetish. I try to hit the delete button but they just keep
coming back and they keep making the same points over and over!

Can't we just agree to disagree and talk about finding true north or
something? 



>-----Original Message-----
>From: towertalk-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:towertalk-
>bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Peter Dougherty
>Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 5:18 PM
>To: towertalk at contesting.com
>Subject: [TowerTalk] C31XR versus SteppIR
>
>I originally wanted to go with a 4-element SteppIR for aesthetics,
>but what convinced me ultimately had nothing to do with an antenna at
>all. It was CQWW-SSB a few years ago. Saturday night, 40m; the band
>was on fire and I had a good shot into Europe with 600W my dipole.
>All of a sudden my logging software froze, then the PC abruptly shut
>off. It took me four hours to repair the log and get the PC up and
>running again. Indeed, Mr. Murphy had come for a visit and brought
>all his luggage with him.
>
>I see the idea of having that kind of circuitry and mechanical
>complexity 70' up, where I can't service it myself, plus one extra
>cable run, is engraved invitation for Mr. Murphy to come back for a
>longer stay--of course, at the least opportune time.
>
>While I'm leery of the rivets giving way, from what I understand, if
>an element or two fails at a rivet, the antenna will still be sort-of
>usable, albeit with degraded performance. If a Stepper motor fails,
>the control line fails or worst of all, the berrylium-copper tape
>breaks, that's it...you're either QRT or stuck on one frequency (hope
>you weren't listening to something on shortwave broadcast at 16 MHz
>at the time it pooched out!).
>
>As Scotty said, the more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is
>to stop up the drain."
>
>Besides, try to tri-feed a SteppIR!
>
>
>
>Cheers,
>
>Peter,
>W2IRT
>
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