[TowerTalk] OCF Dipole
Wilson Lamb
infomet at embarqmail.com
Mon Dec 12 12:29:58 EST 2016
Never miss a chance to offer an uninformed opinion or dumb question!
What exactly does “unbalanced” mean in the context of the OCF feedline?
The Zepp, which has worked honorably for years, must be as unbalanced as one can get.
Are the currents in the two feedwires actually different at the feedpoint?
How would a transformer change things?
Would the pattern be different with the transformer? Presumably so, if feedline radiation is eliminated.
Maybe the feedline radiation helps work more stations?
I shared the skepticism, but my son, who knows no antenna theory, put up a 135’ OCF, only 25’ high, when he got his E. Tunes with an antique Matchbox.
He works many stations, US and DX, even getting through the pileups on 20m SSB.
Not all, of course, but a remarkable number.
His 40m signal here, at about 175 miles, is terrific.
One data point, I know, but the thing is obviously working pretty well and cost next to nothing...salvage 14ga wire and cpvc pipe spacers.
I’d take it every time over the commercial stuff with funny matching devices and impressive names!
WL
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