Tom,
It is a very well known fact that an antenna erected hastily in harsh
conditions always outperforms one erected leisurely -nice warm day, no
wind, lots of planning and help, etc.. Every Ham I know - is well aware of
this. I can cite example after example - including temporary Field Day
antennas erected in rainy windstorms that outperformed much larger home station
arrays.
In fact, to take advantage of this - I have been waiting and watching the
weather reports for the worst, blinding snow storm of the season - to be
absolutely sure that my next antenna project will outperform everything else I
have at present.
Then, you come along and inject all this thinking about objective reasoning,
science and engineering into the mix to challenge many of the popular truths -
it's just demoralizing... Don't be surprised if there are people that will feel
violated or compromised in some way and will lash back.
73, Bruce W8RA
--- On Wed, 3/6/13, Tom W8JI <w8ji@w8ji.com> wrote:
From: Tom W8JI <w8ji@w8ji.com>
Subject: Topband: Comparison testing
To: topband@contesting.com
Date: Wednesday, March 6, 2013, 1:25 PM
This reminds me of an experience I had with a new antenna. After working
several days installing a new antenna, I attached it to an a/b switch to
compare it with my old antenna. I was delighted, the new antenna was always
better !!! Then to my dismay I saw I had the switch reversed ... oh boy... I
changed the feeds, and continued the test. Guess what.. the new antenna was
still always better.
Lesson learned .... human nature and switching antennas in face of QSB.>>>
There is more truth to that than most of us realize.
I put up a G5RV about 100 feet in the air, and I used a pretty good feedline.
Doing tests against a dipole on 75 meters, the antenna I called a "G5RV" would
almost always get a worse report than the antenna I called a "dipole", even
during the times when I called the antennas by the opposite names of what they
really were.
When I would do a test using "antenna 1" or "antenna 2", they were almost even.
The most extraordinary thing was with a good friend who just absolutely hated
G5RV antennas. He would say "your audio sounds worse on the "G5RV" " . This was
true even when I called the dipole a G5RV, or didn't change antennas at all and
just said I was changing.
I really think this is why I installed a 300-foot tower just so I could have a
high dipole. I "distinctly remembered' how well a 300-foot high dipole I had
worked, and I wanted another one. After I installed the dipole here and
compared it to a vertical and other antennas for a year or two, I finally
remembered how well my old 1/4 wave vertical worked. :)
This was eye opening to me.
73 Tom
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Topband Reflector
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Topband Reflector
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