Hi all, >From the it-doesn't-have-to-be-perfect-to-work department....
So, yesterday evening I did my third check-in to the BVARC Ragchew net on 3910. I don't expect much from my signal -- it's an 80 meter inverted-V dipole only 20 feet high. John, K5LKJ, seemed to hear me as well as he heard me the previous two weeks. (My QTH is Dickinson.) So after the net my wife remarks, "Isn't your antenna supposed to be up in the air?" Curious, and more than slightly alarmed, I go outside to the backyard and see that the inverted-V support -- a 20 ft push-up painters pole has partially collapsed, undoubtable due to the friction fittings loosening due to repeated cycles of afternoon heating and nighttime cooling. The feedpoint of the 80 meter dipole is now only 10 feet above the ground, one leg of the dipole is only 6 feet above the ground, and the other leg is laying *on* the ground! Yet, at least some of the listeners on the net heard me. :) Now, I don't think I'm going to work western Europe with this set up, but it has been one of the most important lessons of amateur radio for me that an antenna can deviate wildly from theoretical perfection and still be effective, as long as one is willing to be generous in defining the word effective. :D 73, -- /*/-=[Michael / KT5MR]-=/*/
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