[TowerTalk] Antennas, and other gear, that work

[Ralston, William]

Use a light bulb as an antenna. Or even better, an array of three.  It worked for Tom Schiller N6BT.  I don't have his book handy (Array of Light) so I don't recall how many countries he worked.

I worked a station while running minimum transmit power into my Heath Cantenna dummy load.

As Tom says, "everything works" and indeed it does.

Some antennas work better than others.  How much better is dependent on many, many variables, including how you define "better": forward gain, front-to-back, Azimuth response, Elevation response, swr, bandwidth, mechanical complexity, environmental resistance, electrical stability, mechanical durability, cost.

For me personally, I wouldn't trade my indoor 10m dipole in a San Diego canyon (using the tuner on 15-20 most of the time) for, oh say, a 3-ele 160 meter Yagi up 300 feet near the Artic circle... but that's just me.

N7VM/6