Richard Harrison wrote:

Art, KB9MZ wrote:
"---the comparisons are all over the place and hard to follow."

When the title reads: "Does phasing verticals work better than a
dipole?" that could be expected to evoke confusing replies. Hams play
antenna favorites, often when the favorites aren`t justified.

I agree. Note what Cecil posts: "A dipole at a decent height can have a
7 dB gain
over a 1/4 WL monopole. A two-element phased vertical cannot equal that
figure over average ground."

If you go by what Cecil says, you would get the impression a vertical,
or vertical array would never have a chance over the dipole. Lets look
at modeling with a clear head. The original posters dipole is at 30 ft.
Ask Cecil to run that through the program and see where that 7dbi gain
is at. Heck, I'll save all the trouble. It's at 89 degrees, or straight
up. Whats the gain at 10 degrees? -4.32 dbi. 5 degrees? -10.17dbi.
"using eznec over medium "real/high accuracy" ground"
Whatta a dx buster.
Lets run my 40m GP through the program. Same ground specs. Max gain is
4.38dbi at 11 degrees. At 10 degrees gain drops to 4.37dbi. No real
change. At 5 degrees, 3.41 dbi gain. I don't know about you, but when
working DX or any low angle path, I know which antenna I'll be using.
See, even modeling "proves" what I say. But my real world results
over a good period of time verify this. And others have also. W8JI for
one. I have no real favorite, except as applies to a certain path.
I always had BOTH a dipole and a vertical. Sure, in the day, I'd almost
always be on the dipole. Out to about 800 miles or so, it was a draw.
Could go either way. But over 1500 miles, no contest. The vertical was
king of the hill. Believe me, if the dipole was actually better, I'd be
the first to say so.
I haven't even ventured into multi elements yet.. :/
Or the belief that any small extra noise really matters, when the DX
signal increase almost always overrides it. You would only worry about
the extra noise on the vertical if you were misapplying it and trying to
work higher angle stateside stuff.


I think it would be worth while to see what the most successful DXers
actually use.

True! I think you'll find most use verticals, or vertical arrays to
transmit for the most part on the low bands. Many schemes are used for
receiving.

ON4UN has tried to do this in "Low-Band DXing". Many use
separate antennas for receiving and transmitting. The goal is signal to
noise ratio on reception. The goal is effective radiated power on the
target for transmission.

Many Beverages are listed to receive the DX signal. At 80m, there are
Yagis, slopers, Vees, etc. to transmit. At 160m, there are quite a few
inverted Vees and other antennas which seem to trend to vertical
polarization.

An inv Vee is still going to be mostly horizontal on that band, unless
it's really high, and the legs are very steeply sloped.

The antennas may be too large to rotate and
omnidirectionality may be accepted without so much struggle. Multiple
directional transmitting antennas might be a better solution if the
resources are available. You may only need a few hundred acres.

Size may well influence many to vertical on 160m due to space
constraints. But, I'm still of the opinion that there is an advantage to
vertical polarization at night on any band that the primary skip takes
the dark path instead of day. I don't really think this applies to day
paths too much though for some reason. BUT!, I still think vertical can
do very well on the high bands. With a single element, it puts more of
your power where you really want it. At low angles. Only on say 20m to
stateside stuff might you use the higher angles a low dipole might
provide. I do usually prefer a dipole on 20m for "average" use. But I
usually prefer a 5/8 GP on 10m if I can't have a yagi. MK
--
http://web.wt.net/~nm5k