Questioning accepted wisdom

Hi All,

Hope you're all keeping well and enjoying your radio interests.  


Sometimes 'accepted' wisdom is just what is in vogue, heard from friends, currently doing the rounds or otherwise 'common' at the time. With some interests nothing-but-the-very-best will do and extolled by many, woe betide any of us that fall short of such lofty heights.

(Sometimes 'advice' from our mutual radio friends reads like an old school report...."Must try harder", "Not reaching their full potential" and so on!)

Anyone that wanders off from the accepted wisdom path is often questioned as if they've lost the plot altogether even if what you are trying to do was once common or accepted wisdom. 

My own efforts with antennas were such an example and despite words to the contrary I plodded on with my attic-mounted lawnmower-lead ladder-line fed doublet antenna with ATU ultimately rewarded with working the world on 160m right through to 6m......on one bit of tangled wire. The alternatives proposed to me were impossible to implement in my mid-terraced house with a tiny 22 x 33 foot garden which was why I carried on with such tenacity.

Recently I came across a couple of videos from the famous YL Raisa that also questions accepted wisdom in what some might call a mad-cap way. To see the surprise and smiles on her face as she undertook her 'experiments' warmed the heart no end and goes to show what can be possible when others would claim it to be impossible. (Or at best a pointless exercise!)

Before I get to the videos I'd like to share something a friend once told me about 'listening' to others. He said "If someone tells you it's raining outside, but someone else tells you it isn't.....then the best thing you can do is get up off your backside and check it out for yourself!". Wise words indeed.









A bonus video after viewing these was an exercise in the difference between a vertical or horizontal dipole, something I'd been looking into recently and not getting straight answers to....





Her results didn't completely take me aback, but then I'm a bit more open minded about such things.


Enjoy your radio no matter what and maybe try something a little 'different' now and then.


All the best,
Victor

??????? would need a fair bit of coax to get to the beach lol.
Interesting and got me thinking.
Thanks Victor.

Ha! Ha!

Yes Alan mate, I'd need some 63 miles of coax to get to my nearest beach! (Think that might be a bit 'lossy'. )

None of this stuff holds 'new' ideas either and I found an article in 73 Magazine 1967 (April pg.34) but also a snippet in Short Wave Craft magazine from 1935!! (February pg.592)

We forget 'radio' is over a hundred years old and I'm pretty sure most ideas have been tried out at one time or another during that period.




(For the old magazine articles mentioned you can find them at https://worldradiohistory.com/ but be warned.....you could get lost amongst such a fabulous online collection! )

Victor wrote:

We forget 'radio' is over a hundred years old and I'm pretty sure most ideas have been tried out at one time or another during that period.

I think what has changed is the ability to measure and test our assumptions though.

Easy to prove or disprove a lot of old wives tails with a VNA or similar....

One time about a year ago the para cord that holds my wire up had snapped.
Didn't notice apart from the swr was up just a tad.
Linda asked me to move it while she cut the lawn she sad it had been there a couple of days and thought i had been playing.
Shame this scaffolding didn't fall down but hopefully it won't be there long the building going up is from Ikea.

I'll bet you were still making contacts as well there Alan!

I had a play some time back with a loop-on-ground and was surprised at how well it received....didn't transmit very well though, not compared to the lawnmower lead mess in the loft. Never tried a 'resonant' solution though and Raisa's video has prompted me to have a little play of my own.


-------------------------------

Jeff - Thanks to a kind donation from Alan here of a NanoVNA I've had far more fun with antennas than I ever thought I would. 

Mind you I still had to ignore the suggestions of HF 'resonant' dipoles and EFHW's that wouldn't fit in my plot instead reading up old material regards ladder line feed with non-resonant antenna solutions. In the end the VNA only came in useful to calibrate my ATU once all set up but I could have easily have done that with a SWR meter or with the double check method I used of measuring the RF current flow out to the ladder line. (Gets around the multi-dip SWR measurement problems.)

In the end I got one piece of wire that allows me to work all the bands at my disposal which is great. Far, far better than no antenna or 'modelling' things and deciding it wouldn't be worth the bother.

That's why I'll always love stuff like Raisa has done and experiment to ones heart content to seek out solutions.  


I agree in principle to modern measurement processes so long as we understand what we are measuring. The rest, for me anyway, is just about having fun with the radio interest.

I am not her only subscriber then  If you ever hear that she's visiting the UK then let me know and I'll invite her to try the same experiment with me 100' under the ground through solid bath stone. Does make me wonder if a HF signal would get through, but I'm not curious enough to get my radios dirtied up lol

Seriously though, do like her videos. I watched the underground ones when they came out and was part the reason I tried an 80m antenna in the house recently (short lived, see the HF Contacts 3.5MHz thread) of which 5m was just laid on ground floor of the house before snaking up the stairs. And it worked, not amazingly, but enough to get me a few QSOs in the log.

As you said Victor, try something a little different. If anyone does, then tell us about it here and inspire other members 

Weirdly Neal, even though I'd heard of her I only became a subscriber after watching her vertical vs horizontal video recently. (Right up my alley at that moment as I was looking at potential vertical solutions for a new antenna.)

As for antennas not working too well I'm of the mind that any antenna that gets you on the air making contacts is a great antenna. "Any antenna is better than no antenna" might get slammed down by some but sitting back doing nothing isn't as much fun.

(Always admired your own antenna experiments there Neal!)

Sometimes it's worth revisiting 'old' ideas too and I'm currently working back on a Z-Match but this time with a dirty big fat toroid (not as 'pretty' as the old air-coiled one). All so that I can get a better match on 17m & 12m plus 160m which up to now is working and just trying to box it all up.

Agree with you wholeheartedly mate, worth trying something a little different now and then.  



Would be great to hear from others trying out 'unusual' ideas or maybe telling us about someone who inspired them to give such things a go.

Victor wrote:

Jeff - Thanks to a kind donation from Alan here of a NanoVNA I've had far more fun with antennas than I ever thought I would. 

I agree in principle to modern measurement processes so long as we understand what we are measuring. The rest, for me anyway, is just about having fun with the radio interest.

Yes, but I more meant being able to measure stuff that was beyond us (whether based on technology or affordability) before - things like loss of transformers/matching units, complex impedance for actual resonance rather than just lowest SWR, and how that allows us to prove or challenge conventional wisdom.

Back in the day, everyone said to build a choke by wrapping a few turns of coax around a former, or to use a #2 iron core for a 9:1 EFRW, but now people are testing and measuring like never before and showing exactly what does and doesn't work...to the point the #43 mix seems to be better for 9:1's under most circumstances, and people like the late G3TXQ and K9YC have done awesome work on measuring about every combination of choke you can think of, so we have no excuse for poor implementations in most cases!

It basically allows us to experiment better, with better data as a starting point!

Totally agree Jeff, (we could go round and round in circles with this), and as you make example of other 'conventional' wisdom or standard practices are often questioned then differences supported with further data from modern measurement processes.

My point is that often some 'accepted wisdom' would stop a radio enthusiast from trying out things for themselves when it shouldn't. I mean who the hell would think of burying an antenna and find out the damn thing still works? (Even though it's been done before and hence my reference to historical works.)

Same thing for my lawnmower lead antenna when alternative suggestions made to me wouldn't fit into the space available or else given commercial links to expensive 'loops'. I've known many an Amateur that believed they couldn't get-on-air with HF due to antenna 'limitations' imposed by others when they can actually try out 'different' ideas as I discovered myself.

There's a lot of talk nowadays (probably always was), about the Amateur Radio hobby being 'dumbed' down but it doesn't all have to be expensive gear, intricate measurements or other such and can often simply be about having fun with the hobby and enjoying yourself. It doesn't all have to be 'perfect' to enjoy yourself either.


As I mentioned earlier sometimes it's worth popping your head outside and seeing if it's actually raining for ones self.....I'd have never found out how useful home made ladder line feed was otherwise when almost everyone suggested so-and-so coax is the best and nothing else will do!

does the above videos make any coment about scoffold tubes ? just a thought alan ? 40000m of scaffold must be able to do something ??????
hope you get a better signals soon, there is a house on the A14 near red lodge that had a huge antena arays dont know the G,M etc but you have the same amount of possible radiation pints behind your house, i feel for you i only got horses behind me and big feilds, but looking at that vid Victor put up might be brining the digger home from work !

My wire is connected to the first vertical pole after the slates
You can't see the wire well i can't in the picture but will put my glasses on.
Edit with glasses.
It is the second vertical pole with black at the top.