I think this topic has gone from talking about actual radios and antennas
and the merits and folklore about each, to disrespecting people.
I actually thought it was kind of neat that as a 12 year old kid, living in
a house with tar paper outside and dirt floors and building my gear with
parts from a dump, that someone was kind and thoughtful enough to have a 160
signal I could hear clearly from the west coast on the crap I had for
equipment, and that could hear me with as little as I knew about antennas
and the small junk I had. As long as all those old guys were having fun and
not hurting anyone, that's OK with me. I never felt anything except
admiration for them being available for contacts, and how loud they were.
That, of course, doesn't change how antennas work. I have no doubt a good
monoband Yagi is as good as or better than a pretty large Ham Rhombic. But I
think we can talk about antennas and amplifiers, and some of the big red
glowing anodes, without getting in a snit or condemning some old dead Ham.
After all, most of us are 90% there already, and no one will really care who
had what first DXCC or country total. They will mostly remember the
characters that touched their lives. I still can hear W6VSS pounding in to
Ohio with his 25 watts on 1999 kHz, when I could just barely hear W6YY with
two half waves in phase on top of a 450-foot tower on some mountain.
73 Tom
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Topband Reflector
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