[Elecraft] Verticals

[Dave Heil]

There was nothing really wrong with the R-5.  I used one for almost all 
of my 12 and 17m operating as 9L1US in the 1990-91 time frame.  Maybe 
all you needed to do would have been to mount it on a steel railing atop 
a three story building on a 400 ft. hill overlooking the Atlantic. :-)

The large toroid in the matching network in the plastic box fractured 
into several pieces by the time I was 5H3US.  Cushcraft wanted to sell 
me the entire box full of components only at a very high price and I got 
rid of the rest of the thing.

I keep a Hustler 6BTV with 25 radials here in case I lose a wire antenna 
or have a rotator problem.

73,

Dave K8MN

On 9/11/2014 21 51, David Gilbert wrote:
>
> 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