[Elecraft] Inverted-L (was OT: Vertical antenna)

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

If the horizontal wires run parallel to each other, it will start to look
like the old LF antennas Hams used before we moved into the "short waves".
They typically had a number of horizontal wires running parallel held apart
by spacers and erected as high as possible. 

Those were really top-loaded verticals. The vertical 'feeder' wire did the
radiating and all the wires up top provided capacitance to ground to help
bring the antenna to resonance. Sometimes the 'feeder' was connected at one
end of the top wires, and sometimes it was connected somewhere near the
middle.

(Resonance wasn't much understood in the very early days but the resonant
frequency of the antenna is what determined the operating frequency of the
spark transmitter. Somewhere in those dim distant days was probably when the
idea of "bigger is better" for antennas first became a rule of thumb since
bigger meant a lower operating frequency, and lower frequencies were thought
to offer the best range.)  

If the horizontal wires go in various directions, their fields will interact
to produce lobes of stronger signal or cancel to provide nulls, depending
upon their lengths and angles. 

Ron AC7AC


-----Original Message-----
On the Inverted-L off topic, is there anything to be gained, or lost for
that matter, by having more than one of the horizontal portion of the
antenna?


73,
Dick - KA5KKT