That's certainly not true at my QTH. The vertical has two
extra S-units of noise on receive compared to my dipole.
I'm assuming the two extra S-units of noise on receive
won't affect my transmitted signal. When I had my 40m
vertical up, I never heard any signal that was better
received on the vertical. +12 dB of noise is virtually
impossible to overcome in actual practice.

If you get two extra units of noise, but the signal comes up
four.... Well, you get it... I didn't get much extra noise going
vertical at this location. The stronger signals always overrode
it. The noise should be a non issue in most cases.
But this also leads to an important question. Do you actually
work long haul paths? If you don't , you probably won't see
much advantage to a vertical. If you listened to long haul dx
paths, and the vertical never beat the dipole, you didn't have
a very good vertical. Actually, I've already pondered on that
in the past. Yours was pretty low, with not many radials
the last time around. The combo of mediocre antenna, and
not using it for long paths is why yours was never better
than the dipole. If I remember right, you weren't even talking
over 1000 miles most times.

But almost all my GP's
had the radials attached to the mounting plate, which in
turn was mounted to the mast.

Conductive mast?

Sure. Grounded at the base too.
MK

Nope. Verticals are notorious for picking up local man-made noise.
Man-made noise starts out with random polarization but the horizontal
component is quickly "shorted out" by the earth's conductivity, leaving
only the vertical polarized component. This is why AM broadcast
stations universally use vertical polarization; better groundwave
coverage. They are not concerned with skywave or local noise.

For skywave, either one works fine, but a horizontal antenna is quieter.



They don't pick up *that* much more noise. Sometimes the difference
would be fairly small. When I ran both the elevated GP, and the
dipole,
the antenna that received best, transmitted best nearly all the time.
If there were exceptions, they were so rare as not to really remember
them. If you are working long haul DX paths, the signal increase of
the vertical will override any extra noise. And the increase is almost
always higher than the increase of noise. Noise on the vertical was
never really an issue here. And I'm in the big city of Houston to boot.
When I talked to VK land using both antennas, the vertical would beat
the dipole by appx four S units. Both transmit and receive. If the
noise
came up an S unit or two, it's a non issue. When working from here
to the west coast, ditto, except the difference would be two S units
instead of four. Even in those cases, the noise was never high enough
to make the dipole the preferred receive antenna. Dunno..I think all
this "noisy on a vertical" talk is greatly overstated. Also consider
that most of my local noise here is random, and often effects both
antennas nearly equally. If you are working long DX and receive on
a low dipole, you could be robbing yourself of a lot of received signal
to be had. In my case, 4 S units worth to any long haul dx. You
telling me I'm gonna see 4 S units of extra noise? Never here at this
QTH... Maybe 1 or 2 at best. I *never* wanted to receive on my dipole
if I was working long haul off the vertical. Would be like shooting
myself in the foot.
MK

wrote:
If you listened to long haul dx
paths, and the vertical never beat the dipole, you didn't have
a very good vertical.

The vertical was 2 S-units noiser than the dipole. There's no
evidence that, with the same height limits, a monopole vertical
could ever beat a dipole's broadside performance by 12 dB at
any angle.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

wrote:
I *never* wanted to receive on my dipole
if I was working long haul off the vertical. Would be like shooting
myself in the foot.

Sounds like your dipole was not a very good dipole. With
the same height limitation, EZNEC says the vertical will
NEVER be 4 S-units (24 dB) better than the dipole's broadside
performance at any angle.

At http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp/dipvsver.htm is a comparison
of my 130 ft. dipole at 40 ft. with my 33 ft. vertical
with the feedpoint at 20 ft, both on 40m. There's only a
tiny sliver where the vertical beats the dipole broadside
and isn't even close to 24 dB.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

wrote:

Dunno..I think all
this "noisy on a vertical" talk is greatly overstated.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suit yourself, but any serious DXer will tell you there are times when
one dB of S/N ratio would make the difference between QSO and no QSO.

Bill, W6WRT

wrote:
Conductive mast?

Sure. Grounded at the base too.

I am somewhat surprised at the effect of a grounded
conductive mast upon the feedpoint impedance predicted
by EZNEC. On 40m, with the radials attached to the mast,
the feedpoint impedance is 7.8 - j255. With the radials
not attached to the mast the feedpoint impedance is
81 - j219. With no radials and using the mast as a
counterpoise, the feedpoint impedance is 2044 + j1461.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

Sounds like your dipole was not a very good dipole...

A dipole is a dipole. You can't go by what eznec says.
My modeling didn't match my real world either unless I
cranked the ground quality up in the modeling program.
My GP was *always* about 4 s units louder than the
dipole to VK. Every time I compared. I had a regular
sked over there 3 times a week. The GP was
always 2 S units louder to the west coast than the
dipole. Every time I checked. The dipole was at
36 ft. The base of the GP was at 36 ft. There are
factors in comparing the two antennas in the real
world, that I don't think modeling takes full account of.
Also, my ground is better than yours too. My GP was
higher than your last one by nearly double. Don't
confuse what you saw with your last one, with what I
saw on mine. Mine was a good bit more efficient as
far as radial number vs height in wavelength vs the one
you ran last time.
Of course, S meter readings mean zip as far as actual
db improvement, but there is no doubt my GP smoked
my dipole on long paths. Day and night...And the difference
was reciprical xmit/rcve in almost all cases.

Suit yourself, but any serious DXer will tell you there are times when
one dB of S/N ratio would make the difference between QSO and no QSO

Sure, but the actual signal level increase on a long path is
almost always stronger than any increase in noise. I never
once felt the need to use my dipole for receive in place of the
GP. Would be stepping backwards. Now, on the low bands
like 80/160, a beverage, etc, might be better for rcve, but I don't
use those on 40m.
MK

wrote:
The dipole was at 36 ft. The base of the GP was at 36 ft.

Well, there's the problem. You stopped your dipole where
your vertical started so any comparisons are bogus. Your
dipole was an NVIS antenna. :-) It's not a fair comparison
since the vertical was given a 2x height advantage. (That's
like putting my three foot six inch grandson up against
Shaquelle O'Neal in basketball. :-) Put the dipole at 70
feet, like the vertical was, and see what happens.

The top of my vertical was at 53 ft. and my dipole was
one of its upper guy wires at about 50 feet so the two
heights were essentially opposite yours.

Which brings up another question. If the top of a vertical
is at a certain height, what height of dipole would be a fair
comparison? It is certainly unfair to compare feedpoints
at the same height, like you did. It may also be slightly
unfair to compare them at the same maximum heights, like I did.
It seems a fair comparison might be made when half the vertical
is lower than the dipole and half is higher than the dipole,
i.e. the height of the dipole is at the midpoint of the
monopole?
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

Well, there's the problem. You stopped your dipole where
your vertical started so any comparisons are bogus.

Bogus? How so?

Your
dipole was an NVIS antenna. :-)

And I want it to be.

It's not a fair comparison
since the vertical was given a 2x height advantage. (That's
like putting my three foot six inch grandson up against
Shaquelle O'Neal in basketball. :-) Put the dipole at 70
feet, like the vertical was, and see what happens.

I mounted both as high as they would go. I don't consider
the GP as having quite twice the height advantage due to
the current distribution.

The top of my vertical was at 53 ft. and my dipole was
one of its upper guy wires at about 50 feet so the two
heights were essentially opposite yours.

No , just different..

Which brings up another question. If the top of a vertical
is at a certain height, what height of dipole would be a fair
comparison?
Dunno...But max current on the GP as at the base..

It is certainly unfair to compare feedpoints
at the same height, like you did.

No, it isn't. I can compare any setup I like. I'm not
trying to be fair. I don't want both antennas to act
the same.

It may also be slightly
unfair to compare them at the same maximum heights, like I did.
It seems a fair comparison might be made when half the vertical
is lower than the dipole and half is higher than the dipole,
i.e. the height of the dipole is at the midpoint of the
monopole?

I don't think it matters a whole heck of a lot. I never intended
for my dipole to be a dx antenna. Thats the whole purpose
of putting up the GP. The dipole is for NVIS and medium
range. The GP is for long range.
MK

wrote:
I'm not trying to be fair.

Nuff said. I'll keep that in mind next time you
say a vertical is 24 dB better than a dipole. :-)
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp