On Monday, November 17, 2014 7:26:44 PM UTC-6, Jerry Stuckle wrote:

To quote him:

"Any dipole type antenna will suck on 75M if mounted less than about
100 feet, or about .4 wavelengths."

Which is flat out wrong - as hundreds of thousands of hams around the
world will attest.

I guess it would depend on how one defines "sucks"..
Myself, reading between the lines, I was fairly sure he was talking
about working dx. And compared to a high dipole, or a vertical, or
other better antennas, one might be compelled to say the low version
sucks. Whatever.. I don't see the statement a large enough problem
to warrant a drama fest, which of course if I were the one making
your type of comments, you and Rick would be on my ass faster than
flies flock to doo-doo.. Calling me a drama queen or some such, when in
reality anything I've ever said to the one who I best not mention,
pales in comparison to the vigor in which you attack Jim for something
I consider pretty much a non issue, being I realized right from the start
he was likely concentrating on dx paths and didn't care about NVIS.

Maybe he was slightly carried away on how bad a low dipole might be to
those paths, but who cares.. He wasn't that far off the mark when you
compare the two. The high dipole would likely smoke the low dipole on
long paths.



How many hams do you know who can put up 2 100'+ towers to hang an 80
meter dipole from? I guess all those active on 80 meters, according to
him.

I doubt it, but I do know a few..



And I agree that you can work DX fairly well with a low 80m dipole,
as I've done it several times, but it is true that a higher dipole will
be much better as far as the lower angles.
I still think a good vertical is overall the best for DX myself..
On 40m, my elevated full size ground plane used to tear my 40 ft high
dipole a new one on paths to VK and such. Even my mobile antenna was
better for DX vs that dipole.. And much the same would happen on 80m,
and 160m for that matter.


How can you do that with a dipole that "sucks"?

Hummm.. When my ground plane was generally 4 S units better than my dipole
which was at about 40 ft high, or slightly more than a quarter wave up, using
both the received reports, and my own received signals from VK to verify
the reciprocal operation, and when it's a fact that even my puny mobile whip
would outdo the 40 ft high dipole on those paths, I would not have any problems
with anyone saying that my dipole sucked on those long paths.
In comparison, it did indeed.

Whatever.. If you and Rick are going to jump my ass and call me a drama
queen for being far less obnoxious than you have been, don't be surprised
if I call you on worse behavior than I've ever shown to the one who shalt
not be mentioned. Pot+kettle=black.

Time to give it a rest. We got your point. Many times over.