No, read your own writing. You used 'learned'. I then followed suit. I think you are trolling. What you SHOULD be doing is creating an atmosphere that ENCOURAGES all radio amateurs to exchange knowledge amd ideas. Instead you think that name-dropping gives the entire ham enterprise a pass card, rather than it being a personal responsibility for advancement in "skills',IMO, for each of us, as defined in the US by the Part 97 mission. I don't see you accepting that. I don't see it happening here. IMO, 'you' just turn off the incentive for a 'pool of those skilled in the radio art'. Ham radio is an enterprise that uses hobby-like activities for evidence and advancement of trained operators who are skilled in the radio art. That is not something that a few do. It is something that the licensing requires. There is not anything 'lofty' about it. In the U.S., You want the license, you buy into the law: Part 97. We are not a 'hobby', like building ships in a bottle or collecting matchbooks. That is a delusion which we again see promulgated here, much to our detriment in future frequency allocations. EOL
Hi Chip (W1YW): I spend quite a few days each month with both newer and older hams, helping "hands-on" with antenna installs, shack issues and encouraging migration to HF, etc. In general I enjoy that a lot. But I never tell the people I work with what they "HAVE to Do" with this hobby. It's very explicitly THEIR choice. Want to see amateur radio disappear? Just change that part of the equation. And my point was that amateur radio spans the everyday person to the Nobel prize winner, etc. All are welcome. I've made that very obvious and simple observation many times before. YOU dropped the name association with yourself, very carefully worded I might add. Interesting try at character assassination in your distortion of this, though. We just disagree, Chip. And that's OK. I respect your right to a different opinion even if I don't share it. I doubt you feel the same. We DO agree on ONE point. This is enough discussion on the topic! Have a good day. Brian - K6BRN
Interesting thoughts in this thread. I just happened to be doing some testing with my 17' whip set up with 20- 8' radials in my backyard. With the whip fully extended I get an SWR of 1.5 in the SSB section of 20m. I decided to try what some here have suggested and clamped the whip to a steel fence along the east side of my property and use the fence as counterpoise. The fence has far more vertical and horizontal metal than my radials. When I tested for SWR I found it had changed the SWR range to 2.5 in the same area of the band. I'm not sure what this means but my radials are way easier to pack up and go portable with.
The fence is not a tuned counterpoise. It is now a radiating part of the antenna. The feed impedance has changed. SWR has little bearing on performance, except at values over about 6 to 1 (at 5.8:1 you lose 1/2 your power (3dB) to the standing wave).. The reason we are so OBSESSED with SWR is that we feel that its something, as hams, we can twiddle under the guise that a 1:1 match means the antenna is spectacular in some way. In reality, the PA's on modern rigs are transistors and they cannot tolerate SWR's much more than 2:1, but those same modern rigs almost invariable have auomatic antenna tuners to provide matching too. The notion that metal fences, of a given low height, are great vertical (monopole) antenna counterpoises indicates an absence of knowledge on what's radiating. Your fence has a HEIGHT so there will be current radiated vertically, not just 'counterpoised' horizontally. And that then terminates into lossy ground. Furthemore the power pattern will look weird and not be omnidirectional in azimuth.
My very first antenna in Woodland Park, CO was a 65' run of seamless gutter, a 5' downspout on one end and a 1o' downspout on the other end. Worked great.
Hi Dave (AF0H): Heh! How did it work when it rained? My 1st ham antenna was for RX only and my HR10B could receive 10-80M (10M was theoretical on THAT receiver), WWV, CHU and many shortwave stations (Magic!). It was a metallic awning outside of my bedroom window. The best antenna is the one that you actually use and that works to any degree that allows you to enjoy amateur radio. That said - it encouraged me to experiment with better solutions, resulting in me and my friends having some memorable adventures in 70 foot tall pine trees, roof excursions in the middle of winter, etc. THAT was a big part of the fun, too. Glad to see you're still enjoying the hobby! Brian - K6BRN
.Some interesting posts here. Might as well tell my situation. I live in an apartment complex. Many buildings, three levels. I am fortunate to have a tree opposite my windows. I use 53ft of 26ga wire to the tree. Almost invisible. Wire comes in and window is closed on it. Goes to 9:1 unun.and then 7ft of coax to Rig which has internal tuner. But wait, there is more. Have a downspout adjoining the window and up to gutter system. Attached some 26ga wire to downspout and to negative side of unun. Does it work? Yes and sort of. Slight tune from rig on all bands. RX is not the best so I use a websdr. TX is pretty good. Been here for 13yrs with no complaints from management. It also helps to be friends with the head of Maintenance Department. Play, Break, Learn. Ed-KB3IV
Antennas mounted on fences work well enough. My definition of "well-enough" is that I make contacts with it. In my now fairly vast experience with low-lying wire antennas set up in an amazing variety of situations, I personally think hams overthink them. Mindy
Definition is not a personal judgement in this matter. There are a fair number of questions in the testing pool that deal specifically with power patterns, propagation, and so on. For example, the sides of a power pattern, let's say down 30 dB from peak--what does that mean? It means that the ERP at low angles is the TX power x antenna peak gain x 1/1000. Watts. IOW--not many. That is what is happening here. Thinking is different from knowledge. We acquire this basic knowledge about antennas when we prepare for our Part 97 exams. From the question pool. Hence, is it OK to throw this knowledge to the wind? Certainly it is not who we become when we get Part 97 licenses. And that is why turning light bulbs, shopping carts, and low wooden fences into the 'fun' rather than 'knowledge' category makes no sense for licensed Part 97 radio amateurs. 73 Chip W1YW
This is a long story, but a good one... I once gave a talk on portable radio at one of the ham conferences. It was full of a variety of ways I set up my various antennas in the wild. A clever man jotted down a schematic for an "awesome antenna" that was once upon a time "in all of the old handbooks" and gave it to me. I even had him walk me over to the vendor area where he could show me the parts (a coax T-connector mainly, with one end connected to a 50 ohm load and the other to a 40 foot run of coax). It looked suspiciously like a dummy load to me. So I built it. Not unsurprisingly it had great SWRs. Also not unsurprisingly I could not pick up a single receive signal through it. But the coolest part was when I disconnected it from my tuner, there was the slightest pause in timing where only the center pin of my coax jumper was touching the jack of tuner. Meaning the coax shield was not connected to the tuner. And in this moment, signals danced in abundance off of the waterfall display of my transceiver. I tucked this detail away in my brain, and concluded the seemingly kind man was just trolling me with his "Here, dearie, this antenna should work so much better than all of your other ones..." Fast forward one week when I am hiking Killington and Pico Peak by myself with 100W of radio gear trying to get 20 SOTA points for my efforts. As I set up my radio on Killington, I realize I FORGOT MY ANTENNA!!!! I had coax only, but no antenna. I was heartbroken and trying to figure out what I could use to radiate. Then I remembered the coax center pin. Using some electrical tape, I rigged the coax center pin only into my autotuner and put the other end (25') on a rock wall. I turned the power down a bit, and tuned up the center pin (as best as I could, I was running high SWRs with this) and when on to easily make a dozen or so contacts. I did the same thing when I reached Pico, and I got my 20 points. So, as the fates would have it, that man who thought he was being such a sly alpha hotel, ended up saving the day for me!! And there you have it, a great dummy load story. Mindy
