[Elecraft] Is it my KX3/antenna or is it lousy band condx?

[Barry]

Jim,
     You got it. That is why my first recommendation is for ground 
independent antennas. For portable use, any antenna that can be hung by 
a single support should work nicely so long as it approximates 1/2 wave 
on the lowest frequency. An inverted V with it's center up a tree fed in 
the center with ladder line from a small current balun will work nicely, 
and it could even be sloping if the center can't be high enough. I have 
found sloping delta loops work nicely when fed with ladder line and a 
4:1 balun. DO NOT worry about matching. If you are reading this, you 
probably have Elecraft gear. That means you really need a truly awful 
mismatch for your tuner not to be able to deal with it.

73,
Barry
K3NDM

------ Original Message ------
From: "Jim Brown" <jim at audiosystemsgroup.com>
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Sent: 8/13/2017 1:10:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Is it my KX3/antenna or is it lousy band condx?

>On 8/13/2017 9:09 AM, Walter Underwood wrote:
>>The 16 foot wire on the ground is a radial “system”. One radial is a 
>>lot better than none, but you could use more. The length isn’t 
>>especially important
>
>Right.
>
>>because it is capacitively coupled to the ground.
>
>It's also inductively coupled. BUT -- that's NOT how or why radials 
>work. AND a connection or coupling to earth does NOT make a 
>transmitting antenna work better. That's because the earth is a big 
>resistor, so it burns any power fed into it, whether with a direct 
>connection or by capacitive or inductive coupling. In other words, it 
>WASTES transmitter power.
>
>>Ground resistance swamps any resonance.
>
>Yes, but as noted above, not in a good way. :)   There's a folded 
>dipole antenna made with a big resistor in the middle of it, the effect 
>of which is to "broadband" it by "swamping" the resonance, AND to burn 
>half of the transmitter power. In other words, the transmitter puts 
>power into the antenna, but half of it is wasted in that resistor.
>
>73, Jim K9YC
>
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