[TowerTalk] Off Center Fed Antennas

[Jim Brown]

On 6/4/2013 9:54 AM, Bill Ogden wrote:
> It might be fair to say there are more environmental considerations for
> these antennas than for a simple dipole or quarter-wave vertical.

This is a good assessment, and is the basis for my advice to avoid them. 
Those environmental considerations are primarily 1) the proliferation of 
RF noise sources that the feedline then couples to the antenna, and 2) 
the proliferation of electronic equipment (including ham gear) that is 
susceptible to RFI.

Long wires that end in the shack and most verticals suffer from the same 
issues, both because they are vertically polarized (and lots of noise is 
vertically polarized), and because they are closer to noisy and 
vulnerable equipment.

My point about these off-center fed antennas is that if you can rig one 
of them, you could almost always rig a symmetrical antenna that will 
work as well or better. And if you can rig a resonant antenna, it will 
have a predictable pattern that you can make use of to get GAIN in one 
or more desired directions.

73, Jim K9YC