On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 13:11:23 -0500, "Dave VanHorn"
wrote:
Somehow, flat black makes things "dissapear" against normal backgrounds.
Once you know it's there, you see it.

Hi Dave,

Now the issue becomes what is a "normal background?" Especially for
an antenna. Almost every color is darker than the sky and lends the
eye catching feature of drawing attention to it. It took years for
the Army to accept that lighting up large equipment located visually
against the sky (like on a ridge line) made it "disappear."

Oxidized aluminum does a very effective job of reflecting the
neighboring colors without specular hi-lights and thus blending in
quite well.

In reality, such disappearing acts arrive only through the viewer
becoming so used to seeing it that they are no longer notable.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC