[Elecraft] What's in a name

[Vic Rosenthal]

Dan Barker wrote:

> However, I'd like to say more about the length of the antenna. Is it properly called a 40 Meter Doublet up 55 ft (40 meters is it's length) or an 80 meter Doublet up 55 ft? (80 meters being of what it's a half wave)? Or is there some other nomenclature for Doublet size?

My opinion: If you are feeding it with ladder line or open wire line and are
tuning it with a proper antenna tuner, then you have a multiband antenna, not an
'80 meter' antenna.  It is a doublet which happens to be 40 meters long.  On the
other hand, if you are feeding it with coax, it's an 80 meter dipole which you
may be able to use (albeit poorly) on other bands.

By the way, a reasonably high doublet fed with open wire line and tuned with a
real balanced antenna tuner (like a Johnson Matchbox) is one of the all-around
best multiband antennas there is: highly efficient, simple, cheap, quiet, and
not a big RFI generator.

73,
Vic, K2VCO
Fresno CA