[SOC] Antenna Mojo?

[Richard Brunner]

Re:
" The stupid dipole outperforms my 300' loop on 40M. Makes no sense at all.
It
 should be radiating straight up."

It makes sense to me - I think it's a matter of resonance.  (Of course I
speak as an expert!) (This is very SOC)  Yes, I know that to radiate all you
have to do is move charges, but when the antenna is resonant, they move much
more energetically.  I have a 40/20/15/10 M dipole made of 450 Ohm
ladderline which works like gangbusters, as good as or better than my
Butternut vertical, and it is resonant exactly where I want it.

As an example of non-resonance, my Butternut vertical on 160 M has a useful
bandwidth of about 6 kc, and originally I tuned it to 1900 kc, thinking I
could work the whole band by using an antenna tuner. (now called a
Trans-Match for good reason)  I tried working at the band edges and nothing
happened, then ran crude field strength measurements, and found I was
radiating maybe 6% of power output when at the band edges.  The transmitter,
however, was happy as it saw no reactance.  I think that if the antenna
tuner is connected directly to the antenna you can indeed tune the antenna,
but with a transmission line it is an illusion.

Richard Brunner, AA1P