The AM Forum

Robert Vincent of the University of Rhode Island says that the US Navy seems to like the 7 MHz plano spiral top hat "Super DLM" (Distributed Load Monopole) spiral-top antenna.  I haven't had time to check this out, but here is the link:

http://www.uri.edu/news/releases/?id=3126

Yea, I heard that some guy down the road chanting "size doesn't matter... size doesn't matter"  Heheh, ya know what they say bout those guys.

I'm going to take the skeptical stance as well.

I'm putting some plans together for a 160m shortened dipole that I'm going to stuff in a thimble.   I hit my head on the concrete floor last night and came up with the idea.  I know you guys will really like me when I publish that paper.  I haven't got all the math worked out yet, but I got the whole summer to figure it out.

73
NEO

Neo said:
Yeah, you can sell the plans to MFJ and they will build it cheap and market it to the hamdom-public. You could probably convince a boat-load of Sloppbucketeers to fall ass-over-tin-cups to buy one.

Yes, I remember the infamous Maxcom antenna matcher.

Don,
wasn't it MAX-CON

looks surprisingly similar to a HY-Gain hustler.

Good to know that academia is re-inventing the dipole (again). Right up there in technology with the "NVIS" (very low dipole - duh) and the "Inverted U Beam" (beam with the ends bent down to fit!)

fancy names for simple things... yep it keeps us smiling and the vendors happy!

73 have a good weekend...

KM1R

Hi Bacon,

 Nice article, was a good read, and the facility is Technicians Paradise, but I think like the others here the author is somewhat Lost in his product, and falling Short of "Forward Momentum"...  oh well End users can be Sold anything if the performance figures add up to their "Knowledge Shortcomings" i guess....

Nice place... :D

hello
yes it works
nothing like

big big counterpose
in salt water
or
over 18k tons of steel ship
floating in salt water
help very short antenna

mac

These yahoos are still in business.  Dummy load with a wire attached

http://www.maxx-com.com/index.html

You can tell by some of the praise of these things on eHam that QST needs to rerun its expose of this piece of crap.

Has anyone else noticed how many products there are in the ham catalogs these days that can turn RF into heat?

What about that B&W folded dipole antenna with the big "matching" resistor? Military used 'em, gotta be good, right?

Was that a Gotham vertical I saw on that battleship?  :lol:  :lol:

"smaller is better"? What a load of crap!.... Did someone change the laws of physics?.....

Hey Don! you can take down that full size 160m vertical now....


Small antennas make small signals...  ;)

"IT AIN"T THE MEAT IT"S THE MOTION" ca mon

The Isotron - 160-10M -
http://www.isotronantennas.com/index.htm

If John Wayne [with a black wig] says they work, then they work!
(http://www.isotronantennas.com/1isotron_40-80.jpg)

Every Sanford and Son ham should have one on their tower:  
(http://www.isotronantennas.com/1wd0eja_antenna_system.jpg)

Whee! Here's my new 75 meter antenna! :D

(http://www.hoffmanamps.com/images/tool14.jpg)

Now that's funny!!!!!...... Notice the NASA shirt?

and what a waste of a tower, eh Tom?

"If the military says it's good, it must be, right?"  

Yeah and the military says claw hammers and toilet seats are worth $600.

Uh huh.

I've actually never heard of that antenna range on Fisher's Island, NY.  Then again, I'd never heard of Fisher's Island either.  No matter, I'm sure the military has their minimum acceptable standards and I'm sure this miniature antenna meets them.

But so do that Maxcom and B&W "dipole."  So what's that tell us?  It tells ME I know what the military is going to be spending money on shortly.

When I lived in L.A. there was a guy pushing that antenna at every TRW
flea market. What a Tom Vu sales pitch. I used to get close and listen just for a good laugh. He claimed the plates had the same surface area as a full size dipole so it worked as good as a full sized dipole.
It aint the it's the motion

AS the HUZMAN says;
You can't change the laws of physics !

And Dad;

If it sounds too good to be true ......

Military users have different requirements than amateurs. Thus, they may use an antenna like the broadband dipole from B&W and be perfectly happy with it. One example is the ALE systems used by the military. These systems can operate over much of the HF spectrum, depending on time of day, propagation conditions and the path to be covered. As such, a broadband antenna is required and a 3 to 6 dB loss is an acceptable tradeoff to obtain the required bandwidth with only one antenna. It has nothing to do with $600 toilet seats, even though such comments make for a good laugh.

Engineering is about considering and balancing various performance tradeoffs with the associated costs, complexity, maintenance, and production issues.

Also a lot easier to live with a little loss when the operator can't be trusted to operate an antenna tuner every time the operating frequency is changed. Then there is the hopping mode that needs a broad band resistive load.
A little heat is the KISS approach.

Hard to beat a log periodic for broadbanded 2.5:1 freq
coverage with flat f-b and gain.  Like 13-32 mhz or so.

I notice the military uses them quite a bit for fixed,
directive rotary use.  I don't see many Yagis - or even
Gothams or Isotrons these days...  :D

The homebrew JJ Log stack - top at 100' has 60' boom, 400 pounds -
It ain't done, but it's still fun!
(http://home.comcast.net/~k1jj/wsb/media/254120/site1065.jpg)

A log antenna seems like you are cheating I've never seen such a flat load. They even work close to the ground.
My third contact was a KH6 running 50 watts with the antenna 6 feet in the air.

The A in ALE is for automatic. If the operator needs to select a frequency, tune an antenna, or rotate an antenna, it's no long automatic. All the operator needs to do is compose his message and hit send. The ALE system picks the frequency or frequencies and which node or nodes (other ALE stations) to send the message. This is not much different than what you do when you send an email via the Internet. All you do is put in the address of of the recipient(s). You don't care how it get there, as long as it makes it. The DNS system and routers take care of this for you behind the scenes. ALE is similar but the "Internet" connections are RF on HF.

The mil does like logs. But they don't rotate them a whole lot. Many installations are fixed directions. The B&W dipole is "flat" over a 20:1 frequency range. That would make for a mightly big Log to cover such a range at HF. Logs (really multiple logs off one feed) with 100:1 frequency coverage are available at VHF/UHF and microwave frequencies. Most have no more than 6 dB gain though.

Yep, agreed.

I'm not sure why the antenna manufacturers go thru all the
effort to make those "interlaced" Yagis - booms loaded with
parasitic elements for 6 bands, all interacting...gads.   Then
there's the TRAP multi-band Yagis for 6 bands... makes me shiver.

The log is a waste for 40M-160M - too large and better done
wid single Yagis for ham use.  But for 20-10M, a stacked log
set has so many advantages.  Flat swr, flat f-b, flat gain, driven
array so little problem with detuning from towers/guys, etc,  
doesn't have associated interaction problems like trying to do
10-20M wid multiple Yagis on same tower....  They will take
unlimited power - no traps/matches to blow out.  Mechanically
easier to turn, construct and support than the equivalent in
single band Yagis.

The disadvantage is they're down a db or so from an optimized
Yagi stack for a single freq, and the stacking height between
logs is a compromise for the center freq..  


T

Right on. It is surprising why manufacurers continue to mess with the complex matching and tuning tricks for nested/trapped/crapped yagis and the like. I would think it would be less expensive to manufacture a log. Also no tuning or tweaking needed at the factory or by the user. And they could still charge as much and up their profits.

Yep, the same as in "automatic antenna coupler"

Like this model by Harris that is designed to work with ALE systems;

http://www.rfcomm.harris.com/products/tactical-radio-communications/RF-5382H-CU001.pdf

I think logs a get bad rap in the ham whirl, so are not in big
demand. Most hams think logs have gain the equivalent to
a dipole and they cover a wide range using a single el at a
time. At least that's been the opinion expressed to me several
times.  There ARE logs out there that suck, like the ones forced
to cover a 4:1++ freq range and/or have very short booms.
They are lucky to be equiv to 2el beams, if that. You need a
long boom and a freq range of 2.5:1 or less to give it a fighting
chance to equal a 4 or 5el Yagi..

All logs use only the elements in their respective frequency "cell".  
For a rough example, on 14mhz, it might use six elements;
the 13.5mhz, 14.0 mhz, 14.6 mhz, 15.4 mhz, 16.2 mhz and 17.0 mhz
resonant elements to form it's pattern. This is equiv to a
good 4 to 5 el Yagi, in my log's case.  The current in each el
decreases dramatically as it moves away from the "resonant" cell...  
ie, the log progressively uses the elements that are available until
they become too short or run out.

To see a good example of performance, all one has to do
is try a few pecker matching tests with Chuck, K1KW [ex-WN1BLN]
on any freq from 14-30 mhz. He has a similar but finished
system to mine with a pair of 60' boomed logs at 110' and 55'.  
No one can touch him even using "Sky Needles" [gag] or other
Yagi stacks, caw mawn.

His system works where other Yagi systems are suspect,
due to detuning from other antennas, towers and guy cables.

T

Your point is taken.  I was simply making the point (my opinion only) that the approval of the military being bestowed upon this new short antenna isn't necessarily a sign of it actually being a "good and efficient" antenna.  (Judging from other posts here, many of the users of this forum agree.)  The military that allegedly says this is a well-performing antenna is the same military that has in the past paid insanely for things such as hand tools and toilet seats.

Based on that hand tool and toilet seat example, I'm not real quick to accept "military testing" as the be all and end all of quality.

Certainly the military has uses for antennas such as the B&W dummy dipole and I'm sure even the Maxcomm "thing."   That has naught to do with whether or not the Rhode Island University antenna is any good.  And while it may fill a use the military has, that doesn't mean it's any better an antenna than the other suspect antennas discussed in this thread.

I think we agree.

A couple more articles on the URI antenna.

http://www.eet.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=21600147

http://www.commsdesign.com/printableArticle/?articleID=21401977


If the field strength measurements really do show this thing produces the same as a "full-sized" half-wave vertical, then it's legitimate. It shouldn't be that surprising. If they can be fed and/or loaded efficiently, a half-sized or even quarter-sized antenna will produce the same field as a full-sized one (at least in the case of a dipole). The trick is obtaining the efficient feed or loading. I think that is the claim with the URI antenna - efficient loading.

If legitimate, this antenna could be worthwhile for hams with limited real estate.

Nothing new under the sun. Twill be interesting to see if a patent is granted.
No secret that a properly loaded short vertricle will just about keep up with a full sized one. I missed any mention of what was used as a counterpoise.

Yep, even 1/8 wave verticals with BIG copper tubing loading
coils are within a db of a "full-sized" 1/4 wave one. The loss
can be less and depends mainly on conductor sizes and the
ground radial system resistance/efficiency.  

There's a friend in the 75M DX window who runs a 4-square
of 1/8 wave shorties. [31' verticals]   I am always amazed
at how well he hears and the reports he gets. He is close to
the top of the big guns with that system on 75M.

Even loaded 75M Yagis with 90' loaded elements [they should be
140' long with the taper factor] are within a db of a full-sized one.  
As the guys said here, it's all about keeping the loading and
matching losses small. To lose more than 1 db in heat is doing
something wrong, unless you start using vertical elements less
than  1/8 wavelength or horizontal elements less than 1/4 wave
length - you'll start seeing input impedances down below 10 ohms, etc.

BTW, 6M was open tonight - worked a bunch of stations in FL and SW.

73,
T

I saw the sun spot number was over 100 today! It's been near single digits within the last month. This is quite an improvement.

6 meters was open to Bermuda, Puerto Rico, a number of Caribbean Islands, and the Northern section of South America on 5/10.

My disclaimer.... I'm not an "antenna engineer" but I have spent many hours experimenting with short verticals, in paticular, for the 160-190khz "lowfer band" where even the largest vertical is only a fraction of a wave length and I can tell you there is definately a difference in measured field strength between a short loaded vertical and a taller vertical with less loading. Are they talking about near field or far field measurements? and what about angle of radiation?

A vertical has current and voltage nodes along it's length depending on where and how it's fed and the location of the loading device.

I found that the most effective short vertical was one that used as large a capacitive top hat as possible with as small a base loading coil as possible. Getting the voltage node as high as possible on the vertical was the key, which is what the top hat does.

Just food for thought....




 

The counterpoise is covered in the description of the antenna test range, but it basically is wire radials in salt water.  According to the descriptions, the receive location is also on salt water, about 1 mile from the transmit antenna.

To me, it's the combination of high efficiency and relatively wide bandwidth that is impressive in this design.  After examining the typical bandwidth characteristics of 1/4 wave verticals, I conclude that 15% bandwidth for a loaded, high efficiency 1/8 wave radiator may not bend the laws of physics, but it is certainly not shabby.

Now, if we were talking about a 1/100 wavelength radiator with the same characteristics... then we'd be breaking serious ground.

I'd be very interested to see a direct comparison between this antenna and a plain old helically <sp?> wound vertical. My good friend K2MME used a 40m yagi with helically wound elements for many years. He swore up and down it was just as good as a full size yagi...... but less bandwidth and heavier than a metal ant (fiberglass elements wound with copper tape)

Here's my short antenna for 40 and 75m: (http://img2.imageweb.info/img2/hYC96121.jpg)

The little air variable only allowed 125W PEP and was shortly replaced by a Russian vacuum cap (which also tunes 75m without adding a parallel cap).
(http://img2.imageweb.info/img2/dtg95772.jpg)

-Charles

Neat.

How about a picture of the feed loop?

Hi Charles,
        great photo shot of your loop!!   When I get back east, I'll try
and put a pix in here of a 3" copper loop I build 20 years ago!  I rid the
losses of the conx to a vacuum variable, by flanging or teeing  out the ends of the loop to copper sheets. silver soldered the sheets. sheets spaced in parallel to form a large air cap. the corner of the sheets were cut to form a "mini" variable, by bending them up and varying the
spacing of the corner "variable cap", I used that  to dial the antenna in. no wires. Virtually no connection losses!  we are talking milliohms of loss here!

      fussy as all get out, super high Q, narrow bandwidth (a good sign of LOW LOSS) I used a copper pipe gamma match. the damn thing played
just great! even inside, but I eventully moved it outside where it worked
better.  Note inside, occasionlly  the wall sockets would "spit" an arc ;;


73 Dean! WA1KNX

Charles, it looks like a magnetic field caused cracks on a wall! Great stuff! Did you try to cook a dinner putting it inside of the loop? ;)

Charles,
DANGER WILL ROBENSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are in danger sitting in the field of that antenna with the linear on.  Do your eyes feel dry after
a transmission. Run the ARRL safety program if you want to know how many Volts/Meter.
Dean that was a ciol loop you build....HMMMM was that 20 years ago?

hi frank,
     yup, early 80's.  I'd  also modeled,  what might be best described as a
mobious strip (sp?). built from 1 to 2 foot wide copper strapping, I believe
a nearly 100% eff 75mtr antenna can be built table top. wear a lead
jock strap! predicted voltages for 1k exceeded 500kv!

-deano

Thanks for your concern. But I think I'm safe- I did run the program and the minimum distance is surprisingly small for 7 MHz and 700W PEP, ant gain -1 db, uncompressed SSB (20% multiplier). Also I am sitting in the null of the loop (through the center, perpendicular to the plane of the loop) which the part-65 program doesn't count so there is an additional margin. No, I haven't gotten headaches, sparks off my nose, etc. Anyhow it's temporary and I wil be sitting six feet farther away once I get the sheetrock on another wall finished... (the 100 year old plaster wall already had the cracks!)

Tolly - it would be difficult to cook inside the loop unless the "load" were substantially off-center (null is in the exact center) in which case the tuning and matching might become a problem.

Here's the feed. Sorry it doesn't show up well under the desk but it's simply a piece of 5/16" soft copper tubing with the RG-213 center conductor connected to it. (http://img137.echo.cx/img137/9756/mvc346f0ie.jpg) (http://www.imageshack.us) I can tell that the wood frame and metal equipment cabinets are loading it somewhat since the 2:1 SWR BW on 40m is on the order of 60 KHz and it should be more like 30 KHz.

This is my much more portable, remotely tuned 20m loop (which also works on 40 by adding capacitance, but it's 5 db down). Picture is turned on its side, of course :)
(http://img219.echo.cx/img219/8026/mvc347f1wf.jpg) (http://www.imageshack.us)


-Charles

TNX. Nice work.

I doubt there would be much difference. The "improvement" in the URI antenna is that the reactive components are cancelled out. One of the articles does touch in the similarity to a helically wound antenna. The claim is that unlike the helically wound design, the URI cancels out interwinding capacitance and any excessive inductive reactance. This mean less loading is needed (more efficient and/or less expensive) and a simpler matching network.

after Nam the Army wanted a small efficient HF antenna. They came to a small loop design with 2 series caps to match the feed line. This was the most efficient radiator of all tried. I had the paper once that followed the whole study. All the popular matching methods were tried and the 2 series caps worked the best. The coax was across 1 cap. They even phased a number of them for gain. Inductors were the worse matching method and the small loop couple method wasn't that great either.

Interesting. Glad to hear small loops work the best  8)
I can see where inductors would be a problem since the currents can get very high.
Do you have the paper, or a citation so I can look it up? Is it online somewhere? I would like to see if I can improve efficiency over the pseudo-gamma match on my large antenna, or the isolated coupling loop on the smaller one...
-Charles

Charles, capacitors may be easily calculated using basic formulas. The problem is tuning, since when you will tune the antenna using variable cap (both ends of it should be isolated from ground!) the ratio between smaller tuning cap and bigger in parallel to feeder cap will change a lot, it means variable load.

      ______________
     |               )
    ---  Var         )
    ---  Cap         )
-----|               )
     |               )
    ---              )
    ---              )
-----|               )
      -------------

The Army article came out in the late 70s. A friend Dick W1JF SK gave me a copy that I lost in my move to Ca. in 80. They tried a number of configurations and a single turn loop with 2 caps worked the best. They also tried different shapes. Round and 8 sided was best if I remember.

Another article on the URI antenna.

http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163101726

Kelly Johnson is the father of the name skunk works and it pisses me off when some fraud pusher uses his name as a sales gimic.

The honor of working there just makes my blood boil when some clown
uses that name to sell snake oil.

Who's selling snake oil?

Robert Metcalf is the father of ethernet - the technology and the term.

Tim Berners-Lee is the father of World Wide Web -  the technology and the term.

Hewlett-Packard coined the term personal computer.

Other use these terms all the time.


Li'l Abner used the term Skonk Works long before Kelly Johnson ever did.

What's yer point OM?

I worked there once and learned what it means to build the best.
Also learned respect for the man and the thought process.

Skunk Works got the name because the location of the building
had a local smell.

Wonder why they changed the spelling of the name.  It used to be Max-Com. Max-con would be more appropriate.

Check out the prices.  Right in the same league with audiophool products.

I gotta get me one of these thangs. I likes miracle aerials.
The Unihat Verticle was a pretty good antenna for me on a small lot back in my beginning days on AM 160. Many impressed OM's out there.

Fred

Here's another snake oil antenna to add to the list, claims "Efficiency approaches 100%" 3ft high, 40 lbs.... amazing!  :p  :p

You're wasting your time with those monobanders Tom Vu!!  :lol:

(http://www.gapantenna.com/images/superc2.gif)

(http://www.gapantenna.com/images/attic_c.jpg)

(http://www.gapantenna.com/images/Gap%20Super-C%20in%20Snow-1.jpg)

Gawd....  now introducing the "pigeon coop" antenna -  

So absurd. Reminds me of the old film with the guy trying
to fly with a flapping wings machine.

Someone oughta have a certified 75M "shootout" on the air
where all these wonder antennas are ranked.  On top will
always be a simple, flat top, coax fed dipole. Down -30 db+  
would be these  junkyard wonders...  I wonder if QST would
publish it considering the POed venders.   :lol:

T

Yes, the all new asteroid catcher!!!

 ..... when will they learn? gimmick antennas suck! they really do!

I couldn't agree more... coax fed dipoles  8)  

There was a time when coax fed dipoles were looked down on in hamdom.

Still today, many "old-timers" poo-poo coax in favor of twin lead, crappy brown ladder line, homemade openwire line, boiling wood spacers in wax etc...

Remember when hams used bed springs and rain gutters as antennas?

Brrrrr... Look here young whipper-snapper. Only a multi-wire flat-top made of phosphor-bronze and  an elevated counterpoise will produce a big signal. Ask Hiram. He'll tell ya.....

What were we talking about. Where's my Geritol?

Arghhhh! and don't forget the ole' cage dipole shunny!

Yep, the feedline choice is not really important as long as it's
matched to the load [coaxial or twin lead] or it's low loss like
GOOD heavy open line and then not needed to be matched.
Never see the difference on the air using a dipole.

The important thing is using an antenna with a minimum input
impedance [minimum size like 1/4 wave for a dipole] to keep
losses down and a certain  height above ground to give an
acceptable vert take off angle and stay above the house crap.

Those fag antennas are nothing more than parallel resonant
circuits using a coil and a homo garbage can as a capacitor. Low
input impedance. If someone were gonna go thru that type of
effort to make mini antennas for 75M,  you'd think they'd at least
make up a  10' square copper loop from 2" tubing to
give it a chance to perform at those single digit impedances..  
Even a small, center fed 50' long dipole is better.

[BTW, Steve, you have value too.]

T

I've always run open wire line to the 160 meter dipole for an antenna that covers all bands.
I just spent the past couple days doing lightning testing at 1000 amps.
Shielded wire is a big help and a great isolator.  Open wire line provides no protection until you hit the tuner or a spark gap. Coiled baluns of coax and the grounded shield can make a big difference.

Hi Franz,

I'm in the process of wiring up my feedlines for a bunch of 6M
Yagis. I intend to use a 1/2 wave coiled coaxial balun at the
feedpoint and plan to ground the three associated shields to the
boom.

So, how does the coiled coaxial balun help for lightning? And,
please describe the advantages/path  to grounding the shields
at the feedpoint/ boom vs: letting them float...

[The coaxial balun is an elec 1/2 wave of RG-213 with one end
connected to one half of the dipole el along with the feedline -  
while the other end of the coax balun goes to the other half el.
Forget the T match for now]

T

Yep.

Whenever I hear someone say coax sucks compared to open
wire, I just remind them that the loudest signals/stations  on
the band here in the NE run coax/heliax.  Just axe Chuck/K1KW,
 Steve/WA1QIX, Gary/INR. Bill/GF, Tina/IA, Bob/KBW, Mike/ZE,
and theres many others. [I run all Heliax or coax, but still can't
compete with those guys... sigh... :( ]

Openwire is FB as well as coax. There are advanatges and
disadvantages, but it's not on-air performance.

Personally, I like openwire for connecting together a many
element phased array, esp if the eles are full wave center
fed like lazy H's, etc. Also, even connecting together standard
Yagis is OK wid openwire if it's easier than using coax with
many connectors and matching lines. Right now I'm building
a twelve Yagi array consisting of 2el beams for 6M. It's so
simple to use a T match at each Yagi to bring it up to 200
ohms and feed them directly with 200 ohm, 1/2" spaced open
wire. Just space the Yagis 1/2 wave apart and flip the connections
at each Yagi.  In contrast, it would take about 700' of coax and
60 connectors to do the same job with matching sections, etc.
No contest.

But for regular 50 ohm antennas, nothing beats running a
single BIG 7/8" or 1 1/4" Heliax underground to the tower
and using a remote controlled  antenna relay system to select
the various antennas.  

The loss of openwire in the REAL world works out to be about
the same as 1 1/4"  heliax when both are matched. This is
based on actual measurements on 432 mhz and makes openwire
about 20% more lossy than the charts say. Your mileage may
vary on HF due to less skin effect, etc..

There's TONS of surplus/scrap Heliax available now with all the
tower changes going on. It's cheaper to buy than coax if you find
the right sources.

T

Ashtabula Bill runs open wire line. He has a bigger signal on all the bands than any of those guys you mentioned have on any one band.

http://www.amwindow.org/audio/mov/w8vyz.mov

So that's where his "ain't a slop bucket..."  quote came from... :lol:

Radio Moscow ran openwire too - that's fact!

T

My 8' square of 1" tubing works ok on 75m, but about -5db to a dipole according to various calculator programs (only -1db on 40m). Definitely not as good as a dipole but there's no place to put one on my 80x80 lot. Your suggestion of 2" tubing would be better (and quite a bit more expensive). Silverplating might help a little too.

The radiation resistance is not, unfortunately, even single digits, it's down in the tens of milli-ohms, which is why just a few milliohms of resistance in the loop conductor costs you db's...

I think that's why the really tiny antennas are not going to work well on low HF. Not only does the SWR bandwidth get so small (it is quite possible to make a loop that is too narrow for 2.7 KHz wide phone signals) but the radiation resistance drops faster than the loss resistance as the loop shrinks and a superconducting material would be required to minimize the losses.

-Charles
ps What's a homo garbage can??

Tom
we should have a conversation on my latest grass hopper linghtning
edmucatin. Our set up can go to 10,000 amps but have not turned up
the juice yet. You would love the storage caps for mr ugly.

Dat's right! These are FACTS recently published in Pravda.

"In the Soviet Union we have no problems, especially with
coax - unlike the wasteful United States.  All Soviet citizens
happily use superior open wire designed by our Soviet engineers
and stamped with the communist party seal.  These are facts! "

and in 7 years all the coax in the US will turn brown and we will strap them into the ground.

DAT'S RIGHT! (That's right)


Now, let's talk about something important, like...... Communism. And how to keep the echo on your voice.

Wow!  The Alvino Rey Mel Bay D'Aquisto guitar string dipole with patch cord counterpoise!

And don't forget to get the Homespun tapes and videos to show you how to do it.

Actually, all Soviet citizens happily used for TVs to receive translations of Communist Party Congresses and totally politcorrect news and movies a first military coax with silvered both center multithreaded wire and shielding braid, but later Soviet engineers copied some American examples and made a cable with a single central wire and aluminum foil instead of a shielding braid, such a way they saved a lot of money for Radio Moscow to broadcast Communist ideas abroad with much more power...

:lol:

Alvino Rey!!!!! :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

Let's not forget that Alvino Rey was a radio ham!  And he was married to one of the King sisters.

Give that man a cigar.  I was wondering if anyone
would pick up on that. Alvino had good taste
in the YL department, eh?  

The King Sisters
(http://www.singers.com/groupimages/kingsisters1.jpg)

OK FINE!