Owen Duffy wrote:
On Sat, 18 Mar 2006 10:21:27 -0500, "Basil Burgess"
I've made a first attempt at installing an antenna. It's a 2 Slinky dipole
strung across my roof. I chose the Slinky dipole because it promised to give
good (if not excellent) results in a relatively short antenna. I strung it

There is nothing in your post to indicate how long or short your
antenna is. Perhaps it is a well known design and I just haven't heard
of it in my limited experience.

Owen and Basil,

The slinky dipole comes from the misplaced notion that packing a few
hundred feet of wire in a ten or twenty foot area makes an antenna a
few hundred feet long.

They totally miss the point of why an antenna radiates and how the
steel spiral affects the efficiency. There isn't any attempt to make
the antenna resoant either!

Overall it is a terrible system, unless you just happen through luck to
use it where the antenna has a low-order resonance and current maximum
at the feedpoint.

You could probably trim the slinky and make it work on a few bands
where it would be OK.

If you have enough room, just put up a dipole. Watch out for these
gimmick antennas. There isn't any magic bullet with antennas.

73 Tom