"Irv Finkleman" wrote in
:

....
I should add that my transmission line and both halves of the dipole
were made
from one piece of line cord/speaker wire

Yes, I freely admit that I was a sucker who implemented that type of
antenna system on the advice of mentors.

Since learning those j thingies that you deride, I have come to learn
enough to quantify the sacrifice in performance.

Yes, it 'works', whatever that means!

One way to make sure newbies never challenge you is to lead them down
the same misdirected paths as yourself in the hope that they never catch
up.

Whilst there are those who glibly recite that "any antenna is better
than no antenna at all", it is also true that you might work stations on
any antenna, just you will work more on a better antenna.

I know that dumbing down the hobby is the fashionable trend, deride
those who see ham radio as an essentially techical exploit as the new
age ham is embarking on a social experience, just the connectivity is
several orders of magnitude below those of most social network
appliances. Whilst cutting edge hams are breaking DX records with things
like WSPR at 0.5bps, kids are socialising on mobile phones at greater
than 10Mbps.

When you take the passion for understanding the technology out of ham
radio, it just doesn't compete.

Owen