[Antennas] Longer the better OR Straighter the better?!!!

[Ron & Madhavi]

Hi All,

Here's an interesting observation.

Some of you may remember my crude experiments with capacitive loading =
last Sunday. Well, what resulted was a 35' long capacitive and inductive =
loaded vertical dipole for 40m. I had a 1:1 match at 7090. I found that =
I could work JA/VK and that Europe was easy (all running 100w). It also =
beat the 33' vertical with 6 radials. In France, It was only 1 S unit =
down from my good buddy Wenty/6Y5IC, who runs an inverted Vee at 90' and =
same power. He lives around 3 miles away. =20

Knowing that linear loading might work better, I put up a sloping dipole =
at 40' at the top. From top of the mast 15' slopes back down at an angle =
of 45 degrees and the bottom 15' runs horizontal. That is to say that =
approx 35' of the dipole is dead vertical. What I found was that the 33' =
loaded dipole beats the linear loaded dipole easily. Do I assume that =
the bent sections of the full size dipole has a kind of cancelling =
effect? I can't get the top 15' also horizontal, to make it a Z shaped =
dipole and that section further away from the vertical drop.=20

Am I to conclude that a  33' vertical dipole (even though a loaded) that =
is dead vertical can still work better than a bent dipole that is =
physically full length?  Looks like the trade off has been worthwhile =
for me. I now plan to reduce the inductive loading by adding more =
Capacitive loading. Am I headed in the right direction? Any enlightened =
opinion/suggestion would be appreciated.=20

73,
Ron, 6Y5/4S7RO


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