On Dec 10, 4:13 pm, wrote:
I suspected there are many people who lurk but will never post in a
public arena.
After my experiences with a cyber-stalker I can understand their
hesitance.

A SWL in Scotland asked me about a comment I made regarding antennas
in
one of my RFI diatribes.

Sorry for the delay, but I ran this past some friends of varying
technical skill levels,
to insure that first my answers are technically accurate, and as
simple as I can get,
while maintaining accuracy.

Get the wood out to start the fire to burn me at.

There are really only three types of HF antennas.
Dipoles
Loops
Surface or Traveling wave.

Of these, only the Traveling wave antenna relies on the earth below it
for it't basic
operation. Dipoles will be effected by the presence of the earth below
them, but a
dipole will operate just fine in free space. Loops are somewhat less
effected by
the earth, but they to will operate just fine in free space.

A traveling wave antenna, beverage or 'long wire' relies on the soil
below the elevated conductor. For most of us Beverages and true 'long
wires' for anything
below 30MHz isn't practical. We simply don't have the real estate
needed to
erect one.

Loops are loops. Many people swear by them, but I have yet to be
impressed.
If you must have a loop investigate the WL1030 as it compares very
well to
the famed Wellbrook ALA1530. I owned a for a few weeks and in a head
to
head test with the WL1030 the WL1030 was always as good as or better
then
the ALA1530. The WL1030 specifies a hard to find Litz wire that
shouldn't stop
anyone. I tried the specified Litz wire and a solid and a stranded
wire and I
couldn't tell any difference. It is true that I didn't do extensive
tests below MW.
I am not into NDBs.

The typical 50 to 100' random wire is barely a longwire antenna at
10M, but at
2M, 146, it is a true longwire. But it is also an extremely poor
antenna at those frequencies.

Now for the part that labels me a Apostate.
-
- The random wire antenna many of us use is a dipole in disguise.
- The elevated wire is the obvious element.
- The earth is the non obvious element.
- The earth is generally a very poor conductor
- and also has significant reactance.
-

Hence the Far-End-Fed Inverted "L" Antenna

# 1 - One-Half - The Horizontal part of the 'elevated'
Wire Antenna Element (-) is above the surface of the ground.

Note - Grounding Point (g) at the Far-End-Fed Point
using a Ground Rod mounted Matching Transformer (M%T).

# 2 = The-Other-Half = The Horizontal part of the
'on-the-ground' Coax Cable (=) is On-the-Ground or
Buried-under-the-Ground directly under the elevated
Wire Antenna Element. {Unifying the Ground below it}

-Sort-of-Like- a Crude End-Fed-Dipole

x-----------------------------o
|
|
|
M%T===========================RX
-g-

IMHO - Generally works better than a Near-End-Fed
Inverted "L" Antenna. ~ RHF