[Elecraft] Verticals

[David Gilbert]

Not to heap coals on the fire, but I also owned an early R5 and it was a 
terrible performer.  I had it over a year and when I finally got rid of 
it and put up a simple 20m vertical in the exact same spot on the roof 
and fed it against random length wires as a "ground plane", the 
improvement was astounding.  I don't think the basic concept was so bad, 
but the implementation was horrible.  I realized what I had as soon as I 
opened up that little box at the base and saw what some clueless person 
thought could act like a matching network.

In general, though, I think it is a mistake to characterize all 
verticals a poor performers.  It's all a function of efficiency 
(avoiding losses) and location.  Check out the ground conductivity 
charts across the U.S. and you'll see huge differences, with some areas 
essentially acting as terrestrial dummy loads.  Nearby structures that 
can absorb energy or distort patterns represent other possible culprits 
for bad results with verticals.  I used nothing but verticals for most 
of three decades, but mine were always on a flat roof and well in the 
clear of anything nearby.

73,
Dave   AB7E


On 9/11/2014 5:29 AM, Barry wrote:
> Bill Levy wrote
>> I had no trouble at all keeping in touch with my family using an early R5
>> vertical in 5H3 land when I was working there.
>>
>> Bill N2WL
>> ex 5H3WL, 5Z4PI and VQ9WL
> Having those callsigns gave you an extra 20 db gain.  I've tried a few
> verticals over the years and found them to be poor performers.
>
> Barry W2UP
>
>
>
>
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