[TowerTalk] Force12

[Leigh L. Klotz, Jr.]

It might be that the time has come and gone for $2000 antennas made out 
of piles of aluminum tubing.
With the increasing availability of accurate modelling software, the 
barriers to entry into this market are rapidly declining, and with new 
ideas in antenna construction, the competitive pressure on old design 
and construction methods is increasing.

I don't think it takes gall in any sense to ask for an end-user or an 
engineering manual for any ham product.  Most of these manufacturers 
wouldn't exist without the ham market, and they should simply live with 
the fact that the ham market demands documentation.  Some manufacturers 
(B&W, SGC) have a significant military market as well, but it's not all 
secret sauce there either...one doesn't just drill a bunch of holes and 
sell it to the military, even if you know where they go.

Disclaimer: I have a F12 LPT-1242 which I dearly love, but I wish it 
actually went up to 42ft and didn't get hung up on its own winch cover, 
a problem which F12 alternately acknowledged they had no solution for 
and denied existed.

73,
Leigh/WA5ZNU

Dan Hearn wrote:
> One of the few things a ham can clone easily is an antenna. Most of us have
> a pile of aluminum tubing and could easily build a copy of a $2000 antenna
> design. There is a great deal of engineering expense in modeling multiband
> interlaced antennas and testing them. It is unreasonable to expect a company
> to make public the complete details of their designs. I am amazed that some
> hams have the gall to ask other hams to copy the info on their antennas and
> send it to them.