"Jerry Martes" wrote in message
news:ydoZi.102$RR1.77@trnddc02...

"Tom Horne" wrote in message
For 2 meter antennas, the 137 MHz from the NOAA satellites is probably
close enough. That would require making some test antennas about 5%
bigger than the 2meter antennas.

If you E-mail me I can show you some radiation patterns I have plotted
from NOAA satellites. My plots of actual measured signal strength make
me more and more confident that EZNEC is accurate.

Jerry

With all the OSCAR satellites up there is no need to do go to the NOAA in
the 137 mhz range. The two meter sats will do just fine.

Just because an antenna works well on a sat is no reason to assume it will
work well on signals from the ground. I have not used one , but the old
Ringo antenna sent most of its signal up at an angle. It would probably
make a good sat antenna, but a poor antenna for ground work.

People in this thread are making way too much out of it. In most cases the
longer/bigger the antenna is , the more gain it will have. Just put up the
biggest one of good quality you can and don't worry about it. There will
be enough differance in the lay of the land to make differant antennnas work
beter in differant directions unless you are on a very flat land.