[Antennas] Verticals

Sun Oct 3 16:51:06 EDT 2004

Gentlemen,
 I beg to differ with the arguments that verticals don't work unless you 
have a good radial field. Check out my article on ground-independent 
verticals in the April 2004 issue of QST...and no, it wasn't an April Fool's 
joke! The fact is that if you use the ground as a return path for the 
antenna current then, yes, you need a low loss ground, hence radials. If 
the antenna design is such that the return current does not flow in the 
ground, as in a vertical dipole or a vertical as described in my article, 
then the ground losses are vastly reduced and radials are not needed. 
Multiband antennas such as the R7 inevitably have other losses associated 
with multibanding that makes them inferior performers.
 73
 Brian KF2YN
Yes.. The "C-pole" does work well.. My favourite flavours in ground 
independant verticals are"Another Way to Look at Vertical Antennas" by Rudy 
Severns N6LF (March 1999 QEX)...and Don K2KQ's excellent antenna which he 
calls his "Double L" http://www.yccc.org/Articles/double_l.htm I have had 
excellent results with my N6LF lookalikes. 
http://www.iol.ie/~bravo/low_band_antennae.htm
 73
 John EI7BA 