"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
...

"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.


Hi Ralph

I missed being able to be clear in my "other" post. If there is a Beacon
signal available from a POE satellite at 2meters there is an Excellent
2Meter source of signal with which a person can use to Very Accurately
record the radiation pattern from horizon to horizon at all azimuth angles.
That radiation pattern will be the pattern of the Ground antenna, not the
satellite antenna. We have to assume the satellite radiates equal in all
directions.

The strength of the received signal is recorded into some program like
Excel as a function of time. The actual Az-El to the satellite is
published, or can be computed. So, it becomes fairly easy to record the
actual (ground based) antenna's radiation pattern which includes all the
environmental effects like trees and neighbors's houses.

Jerry KD6JDJ