[Elecraft] Antenna?

[brianboschma]

Mike Morrow wrote:

>Brian Mury wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I would also like to see a comparison between the horizontal and
>>vertical antennas. I don't think the horizontal antenna would
>>necessarily beat the vertical - it depends on a few variables, a couple
>>big ones that come to mind being the height of the dipole and the
>>vertical's counterpoise. 
>>    
>>
>
>Hi Brian,
>
>HF verticals perform poorly without, as you mention above, a very good counterpoise or ground plane.  In temporary portable installations, that is generally very difficult to obtain.  But for a dipole, it's a non-issue altogether.
>
>I've never been able to get any vertical antenna (even a very expensive Australian-made dummy load) to perform within several s-units of a half-wave dipole that was up only about ten feet in side-by-side tests at a *temporary* site.
>  
>
Mike,

The nice thing about veritcals for backpacking is if you cannot find 
trees they  still   work. Additionally you can get away with almost no 
feed line if weight is a concern. As for the counterpoise situation, I 
find stringing wires on the groung to be much simpler  than stringing 
them up in trees. I carry  up to four 32' sections with me that form a 
counterpoise against the veritcal element and often I can elevate the 
groundplane for free (nearby scrub brush). Still  not a "silver plated" 
back yard but it seems to suffice. Now the real advantage of all that 
wire is if I want a dipole, and can locate tree's, all I need do is add 
a feedpoint to the center and I have it.  Personally, if I have the 
trees available I usually put up a full wave loop as it takes almost no 
extra effort and works very well.

My best "vertical" experince  involves a week of surfing on a 1 acre 
island in the S. Pacific.  A 20' vertical over  a sandy atoll with 4 
wire counterpoise, 64' long. In a  few days I had worked 40 countries on 
every continent . Of course this probably represents the best 
counterpoise one can achieve.

another Brian - n6iz