[TowerTalk] Omnidirectional antenna for domestic contests

[Jim Brown]

On Fri,10/9/2015 12:26 AM, Roger (K8RI) on TT wrote:
> For me in lower MI about half of the states are between, 200 to 600 
> miles. Extend that to 800 miles and it's nearly 3/4.

Yeah, those flyover states and the hams who live in them don't matter. :)
> Except for Ca the major # of hams is under 700 miles.  Max stateside 
> is the west coast at 2000 miles.  That means several antennas for 
> distance to the W and SW 

Not necessarily -- a high horizontal antenna with good low angle 
radiation still has plenty of radiation at higher angles. 150-20 degrees 
is a very good angle for stations in the 600-800 mile range, and, by 
inverse square law, a station at 800 miles is 7 dB closer than one at 
1800 miles.

> Typically F/B is more important than gain, 

Huh? For what reason?  Especially for contesting and DX, I want maximum 
smoke!  I'll reserve F/B for RX antennas.

> but I need short, medium and long distance from SW to W

If you understand how horizontal antennas work and understand inverse 
square law, you need only one for any given direction, as high as most 
hams can hang it. For ANY distance, it's awfully hard to beat a pair of 
high dipoles at right angles to each other, and switch between them.  
"High" means "the best that you can do. :)  I can do 140 ft, and I'm 
loud on 80 and 40 at both long and short distances.

Study http://k9yc.com/VertOrHorizontal-Slides.pdf

73, Jim K9YC