While visiting a mountain town in Arizona, a wonderful place with a
terrible legal attitude toward antennas of any sort, I passed a house
in an upscale area. All the houses were 2 or 2.5 stories. On the
roof of one facing away from the road, I noticed a StepIR dipole
installed much as the one is shown on their web site, though closer to
the ridge. The picture shows a ridge vent, which if aluminum would
require the indicated separation. I noticed a few of their verticals
in use as well in the area, most "clearly" disguised as flag poles.

I had a chance to talk with the OM, and he said that while they
certainly worked, verticals, inverted Ls, etc, were not easy to
install in that environment due to the very poor soil and limited yard
space to implement a good rf ground system. The result was relatively
poor coverage, and RF in places you didn't want it. By contrast, a
resonant dipole has far less extreme issues. He mentioned knowing of
one ham who actually installed the dipole inside the attic, along the
ridge line. While the lengths required a bit of tweaking, easy with
the controller, he seemed very satisfied with the results. It seems a
bit brute force, but sometimes the most effective labor saving device
is the proper application of money.

N1GPK, the ham whose picture appears on the StepIR site, has a few
comments in the testimonial section. I did not find his e-mail on
QRZ.COM, but no doubt you can contact him from the other info.





--
Alan
WA4SCA