[TowerTalk] "experts" on loading towers on low bands

[jimlux]

On 9/10/19 3:42 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist wrote:
> 
> 
> On 9/10/2019 3:24 PM, Bob Shohet, KQ2M wrote:
>> Actually we are saying the same thing.
>>
>> 1) Build it and put it up!
>>
>> 2) Take it down or adjust it and put it back up again.
>>
>> 3) Repeat as needed.
>>
>> 4) Get on and make lots of q’s and have fun
>>
> 
> The trouble with empirical designs is that,
> even if they work, they tend to be difficult
> to reproduce if they have no theoretical underpinning.
> You don't know what parameters are important to control.

To me, this is one of the best applications of modeling - you can do 
sensitivity analyses fairly easily - If my element is 5 degrees skewed, 
does the antenna stop working.

I was having a discussion this afternoon with someone who is making 
precision measurements of a dipole pattern with a beacon on a UAV - And 
they're modeling the UAV's pattern and finding that "over-refined" 
models are a problem. (Ultimately, the goal is to make precision 
measurements of a large array of antennas called HERA)
https://reionization.org/



> In the case of antennas, you also have the "QTH"
> problem, where the antenna behaves differently
> in different locations.  With no theory, it is
> difficult to address this.
> 
> There is also the question of what does it mean to
> "work"?  It makes lots of QSO's ... compared to what?
> 

Especially if someone is quoting an QST article from 1960 on a design 
from tested in 1958, when the sunspot number was almost 300 <grin>

(881 sunspot free days and counting!)