Hi Joe,
I can see how this can be confusing. I'm going to take a non-technical whack
at it for you.
Let's assume that your antennas use flat elements (planar). When looking at
the end (down the boom), they look like this: -o-
If you stack one-above-the-other...
-o-
-o-
...then your azimuth pattern (left-right) remains unchanged, while your
elevation pattern (up-down) gets "squished" or "compressed". This is good for
terrestrial work because it keeps most RF at the horizon, while making it no
more difficult to "zero-in" on other stations than if you were to use a single
antenna.
If you stack side-by-side...
-o- -o-
...then your azimuth pattern (lef-right) gets "squished" or "compressed" while
your elevation pattern (up-down) remains unchanged. The net result is that you
must be more accurate when pointing your antennas at other terrestrial
participants.
Either way, you get "squish" since that is the only way to aim more RF in your
favored direction.
Kind regards,
Ev, W2EV
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