[Elecraft] What about Isotron antennas?

[Mike McCoy]

> In my continuing effort to learn about antennas for the
> K1 and K2... what is your view of Isotron antennas?
> Have you had experience with them?  I have yet to buy
> an antenna (dipole, vertical, Isotron, otherwise) for 40
> meters.

Yea I do and don't bother. I mean if it is absolutely the ONLY solution then
maybe it would suffice in a pinch (Like the tornado just leveled everything
around flat for miles and you found one in the rubble).

But my experience is while in 'theory' they are supposed to work, in reality
you might as well try to tune up your rain gutters. They probably wouldn't
be any more problematic to tune (the isotron is VERY sensitive to mismatches
& requires a LOT of tweeking to get it tuned properly).  Probably have
better results too!

It's really nothing more than a big capacitor & inductor contraption that
essentially 'fools' the xmitter to think there is an antenna present.
Otherwise there is nothing else to radiate (except the feedline ;).

Are you space limited? deed restricted? Faced with something that prevents
putting up a real antenna? Sorry to be so negative but I've struggled with
this myself over the past few years, tried the more common approaches
(Isotrons, slinky's, etc) and found them to be pretty much beyond hope.
Short of a big dollar solution (tower/beam, etc.) you just can't beat some
long wire up in the clear.

Mike K5PU