[Lowfer] FW: 600MRG> Helically wound vertical on a city lot>NO WAY!!!

[John Davis]

>I am thinking that the capacitance to ground at the lower level would cause
>a bunch of losses. One would want all the capacitance way up high and away
>from the ground, I believe.

Well, as much of it as you can manage, anyway.  :-)

That's why someday I figure to try various non-uniform winding pitches, to
get as much of the helix above the immediate ground as possible.  Even so,
there's still the general problem of a helical being susceptible to detuning
by environmental factors.  (I think this was probably the case with NR in
the rain, as mentioned by Ed.  To deal with both of these factors in my
MedFER experiments, I finally found top loading indispensible.  So, the
antenna wasn't a "pure" helical anymore, as I wasn't depending on its
self-resonance, nor was the winding optimized for a conventionally loaded
vertical either, as I have since come to understand.  So it became more of a
curiosity than anything else...but it did a passable job.

>Oh well. What do you use for an antenna down
>there John???


These days I'm receive-only, with little time even for that.  My most recent
LowFER transmitting antenna, though, was a fairly ordinary vertical with a
Tee top and a loading coil at the base.  Lots of trees, alas, and poor soil
as well, so way too much loss to do any good with plain CW.

73,
John