"Dot" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 24 Feb 2006 19:39:31 GMT, Cecil Moore
wrote:

What if one is broken and you don't know it?

I one side of a dipole gets loose, you'll know all about it... the
swr is
likely to go to 6 or higher. Your receiver would be mysteriously
quiet and
you wouldn't be getting normal power from your transmitter. In the
worst
case it could damage your equipment.

Antenna failure is not trivial.
==========================================
I quite agree.

Of course, if there's anything the matter with the antenna then you
will be aware of it long before you discover whether or not there's
any need to get out your measuring instruments to find how much your
feedline is unbalanced.

Just go out into your back yard and see whether your antenna is still
up in the air or not.

Many years back I once had a neighbor who sabataged my inverted-L at
1am in the morning while I was on the air. I did NOT measure
unbalance on the feedline - I was not equipped to do it - I just
called the police!

It turned out that my neighbor had very sensitive ears and could hear
my microphone voice through the walls of our adjoining houses.
----
Reg.