[Elecraft] Less Than Perfect Antennas [was Flumoxed]

[Jim Brown]

On 12/7/2018 12:55 PM, Dick Dickinson wrote:
> Why is there so much promotion of dipole antennas over inverted vee type antennas?

As has been noted, an inverted vee is a compromise dipole -- the sort of 
thing you can rig with a single support. A flat dipole with its center 
at the same height as the inv vee will have a dB or two more gain, and 
the directional pattern will be the classic "figure-eight" pattern with 
broad peaks broadside to the wire and nulls off the ends. Inverted vees 
tend to lose the nulls off their ends. All this stuff is in the ARRL 
Handbook and Antenna Book which every ham should own and study as we 
have time.

For rigging heights that are possible for most hams, horizontal antennas 
for 160 or 80, and 40M over flat terrain produce more gain at greater 
height. It is a fallacy that an antenna must be low to work short 
distances. Low antennas radiate LESS signal at high angles than high 
ones. I published a study of this several years ago. It's here. 
http://k9yc.com/AntennaPlanning.pdf  beginning on page 10. Field 
strength at 70 degrees vertical elevation just starts to fall off as it 
is raised to 1/3 wavelength. That's 45 ft on 40M, 90 ft on 80M, 180 ft 
on 160M.

73, Jim K9YC