[TowerTalk] Expected VSWR of antenna near the ground

[jcjacobsen at q.com]

Yo, 


Doug is having fun with tuning a new antenna near the ground. SWR readings are off. 


Doug and all: I recently helped assemble and install a Cushcraft ASL2010 and we followed the procedure in the manual. 
In part/paraphrased it says: Temporarily mount the antenna vertically, with the longest element at least 1 foot off the ground on non-conductive surface (wooden box or similar). Guy the antenna vertical with non-conductive line. (Of course, you remembered to connect a good length of coax to the feed point balun)....... Keep the antenna away from other objects, esp METAL/other antennas. Take your readings with analyzer or the transmitter and SWR meter. 


This is what we did. 20 meters was off a little bit, but everything else looked pretty good. When we got it up on the tower, everything fell into place. 


BUT, (there is always a BUT) if you're designing/building a homebrew LPDA, welllllllllll it should still work, unless your figures/design is way off. 


As always, YMMV. 


73 es gd luck with the project. 
K9WN Jake (NOT an antenna GARU)