[TowerTalk] my Mosely story!

Wed Apr 1 09:49:35 EDT 2026

This all went down in the 1970's when me K4JYO, Don WA4BCY and Tom dont 
remember his call were on 20 mtr SSB one evening chatting with the OP at 
KC4AA in the Antarctica with S8++ signals. We all had identical 
setups.... Drake C-lines, SB220 amps and 100 ft towers. I had Hygain 
HyQuad 2 el quad, Don had HYgain TH6dxx, and Tom had TA36 Mosley. We 
were all within a 10 mile circle of each other. Tom asked to give the 
KC4AA a call and after several minutes of calling the OP said he 
couldn't hear him at all and wanted to know what antenna he had.... his 
last comment was is he using a wet noodle? So that stuck with me and now 
all Mosley antennas are wet noodles...lol. 73's Cort K4WI    ex K4JYO/K8OPP

Michael Tope wrote on 4/1/2026 4:41 AM:
> Yeah, I went back and looked at the copy of the report I have, the 
> forward gain of the TA33 was only 1 to 2.5 dB down from the TH7 
> depending on the band and frequency within the band. I agree that 
> you'd be hard pressed to discern that small a difference between HF 
> antennas on receive especially with the constant fading.
>
> Even if you were transmitting, it would be hard to tell if one antenna 
> had an edge. Until recently, I had been using a 500 watt solid-state 
> amp to operate HF contests with my remote station. On those occasions 
> when I would physically go to the remote station, I would switch in a 
> 1500 watt manually tuned tube amp to get whatever edge you get from an 
> extra ~5dB of ERP.
>
> While I am sure the extra power helps at the margin, in either case I 
> could still make hundreds or even thousands of QSOs. It is really hard 
> to tell when someone can't hear you how much additional ERP would get 
> you above their noise level or how much your QSO rate would increase 
> when CQing if you increased power by X dB.
>
> 73, Mike W4EF...............
>
>
>
> On 3/30/2026 8:32 PM, David Gilbert via TowerTalk wrote:
>>
>> "Nothing scientific" Exactly. Receive is a pretty bad way to compare 
>> gain unless you did so with instrumentation. Signal to noise is how 
>> we usually judge signal strength by ear, and if the gain is less so 
>> will be the noise. I can hear a LOT of stations on antennas that are 
>> so bad on transmit that nobody would be able to hear me. Your 
>> "slightly less" could easily be several dB, and "not bad for an old 
>> design" is hardly a recommendation when better designs are available. 
>> Dave AB7E
>> On 3/30/2026 6:30 PM, Doug Renwick via TowerTalk wrote:
>>> Mosley bashing is never ending.
>>> So I had to see for myself.
>>> I was given a Mosley TA33 tribander. It is certainly well built.
>>> I mounted it at 50 ft pointed towards Europe.
>>> I also have a TH7DX at 50 ft that I can point in the same direction.
>>> I did a few receive signal comparisons. Nothing scientific but it 
>>> gave me a rough idea how the TA33 performs. Generally equal to or 
>>> slightly less than the TH7DX.
>>> My conclusion is the TA33 is not that bad as some claim and not bad 
>>> for an old design.
>>>
>>> Doug/VA5DX
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf 
>>> Of Joe Subich, W4TV via TowerTalk
>>> Sent: March 30, 2026 5:46 PM
>>> To:towertalk at contesting.com
>>> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] New antenna?
>>>
>>>
>>> On 2026-03-30 7:18 PM, Peter Voelpel via TowerTalk wrote:
>>>> Then how comes that they are always providing same or better signal
>>>> strength then other tribanders?
>>> They are not, as proven by proper range testing.
>>>
>>> My first tribander (50 years ago next year) was a Mosley TA36 ... I
>>> quickly replaced it with a set of Hy-Gain antennas (204BA, 155BA,
>>> 105BA) and never looked back.  Comparatively, the Mosley was a lead
>>> (HEAVY) dummy load and a set of dipoles performed as well.
>>>
>>> 73,
>>>
>>>      ... Joe, W4TV
>>>
>>>
>>> On 2026-03-30 7:18 PM, Peter Voelpel via TowerTalk wrote:
>>>> Then how comes that they are always providing same or better signal 
>>>> strength
>>>> then other tribanders?
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf 
>>>> Of Jim
>>>> Brown via TowerTalk
>>>> Sent: Dienstag, 31. März 2026 00:41
>>>> To:towertalk at contesting.com
>>>> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] New antenna?
>>>>
>>>> On 3/30/2026 3:16 PM, Gary Smith wrote:
>>>>> Suggest you get catalog from Mosley and consider one of their 
>>>>> monobanders
>>>> if you don’t want traps.
>>>>
>>>> Monobanders are a great idea IF you have the real estate to rig them.
>>>> Moseley's big tribander came in dead last in the testing that N0AX and
>>>> K7LXC did in 1999. It even had negative gain (dBd -- with respect to a
>>>> dipole) on 15 and 10M, only 0.7 dB on 20M.
>>>>
>>>> 73, Jim K9YC
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>>
>>>
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