Tdonaly wrote:

Jim Kelly wrote,

All can probably also agree that you seem more interested in your
correspondent than in antennas.

jk



That's a cheap shot, but it's a cheap shot worth thinking about. Sometimes
the users's expectations and expertise - or lack thereof - are the deciding
factors
in whether something "works" or not. The EH antenna may work for some people
in the way that homeopathy, brightly colored sugar pills, and other quack
remedies work in medicine, but Richard is right, the technical qualities of
antennas
can't be revealed by testimonials or protestations of faith.


I read a couple pdf's on the things where a couple hams tested 20 meter
backpacker against a dipole.

When the test signals were coupled with a very short length of coax to
the antenna, the EH didn't perform well at all. When coupled with a 1
wave length of coax, the feedline radiated, but not very efficiently,
around 1% as efficiently as the dipole, IIRC. Forgive the numerical
blunders, it was late, and I might have slipped a number or two! 8^)

A long coax version fared better against a vertical in a second test,
but in all fairness, the vertical had a pretty lousy ground.

But okay, the thing worked. The authors concluded that what they had
was a tuned circuit on the end of some coax, and the coax radiated more
so than the antenna. This sounds almost like aa halfwave antenna with
it's tuned circuit. Any relation there?

All in all, it sure seems like a lot of trouble for a so-so antenna,
and since I don't particularly like RF burns and radiating coax, I think
I'll pass! 8^)

- Mike KB3EIA -