On 10/14/2012 8:16 PM, tom wrote:
On 10/14/2012 7:48 PM, gipy wrote:
On Sunday, October 14, 2012 7:55:14 PM UTC-4, tom wrote:
On 10/14/2012 6:02 PM, gipy wrote:

Wow, a newsgroup cop and an English teacher!

BTW it's I'm and not I'M, but I won't tell you to learn the language
you write.

I very much respect and appreciate the "first person's" opinion and my
apologies to him for not expressing that before but it is just that,
an opinion, just like mine. I did not think a difference of opinion
could be called an argument.

My disagreement "not argument" really had little to do with my
question about burying the feed-line, not which antenna works best.

I am pretty sure by now this thread has gone south thanks to your
watchful eye on correctness, sensitivity and diplomacy on this group
but anyway,
I would still like to hear from anyone with some advice on burying a
feed-line.


No. not a newsgroup cop, just wondering why the first response to you
was disputed. And I held the cap key down too long. It happens.

He's pretty much on the nose though in his comments. If you can make a
G5RV or random work, it's mostly luck. Yes, with end fed proper
grounding helps a lot, but it's still a crap shoot.

tom
K0TAR
Hi tom,

I have been a ham since 1955. I have experience trying different types
of antennas. At one point (10 years) I designed antenna installations
for Raytheon Co.

Those who have not compared their random wire or G5RV to a good antenna
figure it is working just fine.

I can say that I know that if you want a dipole to work on multiple
bands, it needs to be a full 1/2 wavelength on the band you want it to
work on. Feeding it with open wire and a tuner will allow some decent
performance on bands that are higher in frequency. I am guessing Tom
that you already know this.

My favourite antenna for living in the city on a lot surrounded by homes
and industry is the horizontal loop fed with open wire. This does a
great job of nulling horizontal noise from the town.

Many hams just look at the 102 foot spec for a G5RV and works all bands
and say great. If they can talk to anyone they figure it must be
perfect. It is not actually a bad antenna on 20 meters. However, the
performance on 75 is abysmal. I work 75 most of the time and when I hear
a new guy come on in our area with a weak signal we all figure the guy
is running a G5RV. This is usually the case. We always nudge him in the
direction of putting up a decent antenna.

The only time a random wire makes any sense is aboard ship or boats. If
you can make a solid connection to the sea water you have a decent
antenna. BTW a decent connection on a non steel or aluminum vessel is 30
square feet of copper plate on the outside of the hull.

It is hardly worth my time to talk with anyone who already figures he
knows all about antennas because he has used a G5RV and it works fine.
We need to reserve our comments about what really works for those who
are actually interested in improving their station operation and have
not taken the attitude that they are already experts. :-)

There is a guy here my age who has experimented with antennas much more
than have I. He nudged me into changing my 450 plastic dialectrict
balanced line to my loop to an open wire. I did not expect much
difference. I was shocked at the improvement. He is our resident expert
in the "North Woods". This is the Michigan upper peninsula, Northern
Wisconsin, and Minnesota. He is not an expert on antenna theory or math,
but damn sure knows what works best. I wish I had changed my feed line
three years ago when he told me to do so.

Michael