Thanks for the info... My main concern between my two examples was
ease of construction I guess... After stripping the coax and throwing
the braid and jacket away, I starting feeling like it was kind of a
waste. Then I thought... why not just use insulated wire. But that
would bring the element sizes up and not allow as much room for as
many elements. Maybe two less elements, which wouldn't be huge, but it
would be a difference in specs. One version is 10 half wave elements
using a 78 VF center conductor in brass tube, along with a free space
1/4 on the bottom and one on the top. No short at the top as my tests
showed this actually lowered performance. I actually am not sure why.
Independent tests done by a reputable company that does this stuff
full time showed this one to be about a 10 degree angle and about 8 db
gain at peak angle. Which is pretty decent and it does perform quite
well in real world tests. But of course there's always room for
improvement. But anything more than that and there might be some
pretty bad nulls on top.