John Ferrell wrote:
Why do we always mount our HF Yagi's in the horizontal plane?
Antenna maintenance would be much easier for those of us with tilt
over towers if the antenna were in the horizontal plane when down for
maintenance!

John Ferrell W8CCW

Over the past 38 years, I've had HF yagis... a homebrew 3-el 15m monoband
yagi (16' boom) and 3-element triband trap yagis (12' booms) on tiltover
masts. I've never encountered maintenance issues with operating them in the
horizontal plane. A step lader is all that's needed to reach the driven
element, and the antenna can be rotated to reach both parasitic elements.

It seems to me that while Front/Back ratio might be similar, a vertically
polarized yagi would have a significantly reduced Front/Side ratio. If
operated in the vertical plane, I'm guessing that performance may also be
adversely affected by a conductive mast in the near-field. If performance
was same/similar and maintenance was much easier, I think you'd see many
more vertically polarized HF yagis.

Bryan WA7PRC