On Fri, 4 Sep 2009 00:56:39 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Sure, you can get fairly close to isotropic with the right
system, but how are you going to do it by tipping a
vertical? The likely results do not fit my idea of isotropic.

I forgot to connect my comments to the original question. Sorry(tm).
You're correct. There's no way to get a good isotropic radiator
pattern with a simple vertical radiator. However, you can still get
fairly close if you make the antenna sufficiently small relative to
the operating wavelength. As the physical antenna size approaches a
point radiator, the pattern starts to look rather spherical.
Unfortunately, the gain drops, efficiency drops, and feed point
impedance drops, resulting in a rather inferior antenna.

There's also a question of how close to perfection does the spherical
pattern need to become? Within 0.1dB, 1dB, 3dB, etc???? Offhand, I
would guess anything within a few dB of spherical could be considered
isotropic, as in all the patents I noted.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558