"Reg Edwards" wrote in message
news
Sal,

A capacitance hat allows you to drive your car into the garage without
breaking off a whip of 15 feet equivalent height.

A capacitance hat loads a short vertical without suffering the loss in
a loading coil.

To calculate capacitance of a hat, above an antenna of given height,
with N spokes of given length, surrounded by a halo, plus resonant
frequency, download program TOPHAT from website below.

The program also calculates L and C values of the tuner. The whole
job can be done in a couple of minutes.

That's outstanding! I see the original antenna was only about 15% efficient
and the capacitance hat improved it by about 2 dB. I will play with that
program. Thanks.

"Sal"
(really KD6VKW)

"Sal wrote
That's outstanding! I see the original antenna was only about 15%
efficient
and the capacitance hat improved it by about 2 dB. I will play with
that
program. Thanks.

=======================================
Sal, enjoy yourself with it. I do not wish to dampen your enthusiam,
but 2 dB is only 1/3 of an S-unit. Hardly noticeable! ;o) ;o)
----
Reg.

Reg Edwards wrote:
Sal, enjoy yourself with it. I do not wish to dampen your enthusiam,
but 2 dB is only 1/3 of an S-unit. Hardly noticeable! ;o) ;o)

Hardly noticeable? That's enough to be crowned champion
of a 75m mobile shootout with all the attending honors. :-)
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

1dB is a human-detectable change.

2dB could make the difference between a QSO and no QSO with marginal
S/N ratio.

1 "standard" S-unit of 6dB can probably make the difference between
marginal S/N and armchair copy.

If copy is already armchair, Reg's totally right. No change. I like to
make a lot of QSO's that are down in the noise, though.

73,
Dan

wrote:
I like to
make a lot of QSO's that are down in the noise ...

I do believe that meets the definition of masochism. :-)
Did you see the T-Shirt? "Life is too short for QRP"
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

Hmm... maybe "like" is the wrong word...

Whaddya mean, QRP?? I'm running 100W into my 40m dipole on 20m with 100
feet of RG-58! Only 13dB of loss there! That's only 2 and change in S
units. I mean, 100W/10^(1.3) = 5.01W... uhoh.

Seriously though, a lot of my 6m DX QSO's on CW are within a couple dB
of being unreadable, I bet. Probably none on HF right now that could
be split this finely, because all my tough ones are being covered by
static crashes on 40 and 30m. Back when 15-10m were open, though, I
would have welcomed a "1/3 S-unit" increase on some of the hard stuff.

Of course, fading is much more than 2dB, but having the average signal
level that much higher will still make an *improvement* in readability.

73,
Dan

Cec,
With a generous standard error of 1dB in the measurements, and taking
the 3-sigma limits, anybody who has claimed a crown on the strength of
1/3 of an S-unit should be obliged to hand it back to the judges
pending the other participants clamour for a re-count. ;o)
----
Reg.

Reg Edwards wrote:
With a generous standard error of 1dB in the measurements, and taking
the 3-sigma limits, anybody who has claimed a crown on the strength of
1/3 of an S-unit should be obliged to hand it back to the judges
pending the other participants clamour for a re-count. ;o)

I have a confession to make, Reg. I noticed precipitation
water from the fog dripping from everyone's coils when
the measurements first started. I waited until last when
the sun was shining and won the shootout. :-)
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

"Cecil Moore" wrote
I have a confession to make, Reg. I noticed precipitation
water from the fog dripping from everyone's coils when
the measurements first started. I waited until last when
the sun was shining and won the shootout. :-)
--
========================================
Cec, now that's really making science work for you.

I can imagine you in a deer-stalker capacitance hat, using a Sherlock
Holmes magnifying glass to read the S-meter.
----
Reg.

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

On Sun, 30 Jul 2006 18:09:58 GMT, Cecil Moore
wrote:

Hardly noticeable? That's enough to be crowned champion
of a 75m mobile shootout with all the attending honors. :-)
--

------------ REPLY SEPARATOR ------------

Speaking of shootouts, are there any scheduled this summer? I've never
been to one and I'd love to go.

Bill, W6WRT