On most of the contacts, we both received the stations about the same strength and were given about the same signal reports. One station in California could barely hear me, and I could barely hear him although he was S9 both ways with the other station nearby. I guess he was in one of those nulls that shows up when the antenna gets a few wavelengths long.
Hi Bob,
Sounds like that openwire dipole is perfect for your situation.
I was curious about the nulls you mentioned. Also about the gain on higher bands, so I modeled your 135' dipole at a height of 60'.
We can use 80M as the reference, since it is a 1/2 wave dipole on that band at 1/4 wave high.
Models:
80M : 6.48 dbi gain, take off angle peak at 70 degrees. Broad textbook Figure 8 pattern (Reference)
40: Your best band: 8.22dbi, take off 32 degrees, very sharp figure 8. Compared to a standard dipole, your signal will fall off sharply when not broadside due to the sharp lobe. (the price of gain)
20M: -1.45 dbi gain, take off 16 degrees. This -5db of negative gain is due to the cloverleaf pattern spreading out the energy in four major directions. Four deep nulls.
10M: 5.91dbi gain, 8 degrees vert take off. This is less gain than a 1/2 wave dipole cuz of the octapus pattern spreading the RF in a circle. Eight Deep nulls as you experienced. The energy is now starting to radiate off the ends of the antenna with sharp nulls broadside.
Your vertical take off angles are very good for DX from 40-10M, however, the horizontal patterns are tough to work with on 20-10M. ie, the antennas no longer radiates off the broadside like on 80-40M.
All in all, it's a decent compromise and low maintainence antenna as you said - though the modeling shows the advantage of horizontal pattern control and stable gain that separate 1/2 wave coax dipoles would give in comparison. No free luches.
73,
T