LW-MW-SW Relay Tuned 15' Noise Reducing Vertical Antenna

Useful information regarding antennas for SDR products.
glovisol
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Re: LW-MW-SW Relay Tuned 15' Noise Reducing Vertical Antenna

Post by glovisol » Mon Jul 08, 2019 9:25 am

Mike, with sympathy, this is and has has always been the problem of many guys involved in Electronics (and in other disciplines as well!): they tend not to think with their own head, but lend their brains to others, refusing even the minimum effort to understand, probably because they do not have the necessary expertise to read mathematics on one side and physics on the other, or because they are TRUE BELIEVERS. Are you so brave as to state you have understood even a fraction of what you have (perhaps) read in the paper you referred to? Paraphrasing the famous sentence of Bill Clinton, I would say: "its the conclusions, stupid!".

There are millions of so called "papers", published in the most important journals in the world, which serve no other purpose as that of career advancement, be it in the R&D of a Company or for obtaining a professorship in an University. The main point of these papers is not to describe a new discovery, or something useful to technological advancement, but just to make numbers, on the rationale that the more one guy publishes, the easier it will be to obtain that best job or professorship. THE MAIN POINT IS, WHEN YOU DO THIS, TO COPY FORMULAS AND DATA FROM OTHER PAPERS, OF COURSE CITING THE ORIGINAL AUTHORS, BEING VERY CAREFUL NOT TO MAKE MISTAKES, and above all, NOT TO PUT IN ANYTHING NEW OR ORIGINAL (supposing you have something to say at all) SO YOU WILL NEVER BE CAUGHT IN CONTROVERSY. If you analyse the text, this guy first makes one statement, then, afraid to be caught into having admitted something controversial, just states the reverse in the next paragraph. FACT is I never accused the Author of any misinformation: this has been maliciously and polemically stated by you yourself alone! In fact my thesis on this "paper" is that it does not give any relevant information at all.


Mike, we have done some work together, you have helped me several times and I hate to contradict you, but please leave the anger and the irony out of this exchange. What if I carefully read the paper you referred to and found, in clear conscience, nothing important in it? Why must you be angerful and sarcastic if I express my opinion? At the end of the day you did not write that paper, somebody else did. And, at the end of the day, there is NOTHING in that paper demonstrating the soundness of the design both of the "impossible" "little reducing noise 15' whip antenna", or of the PC board antenna you are using and for which you are ready to swear. In fact that article you cited, if read carefully, should push you to use a loop. In fact, please forgive me again, but I do not understand the reason why you cited this non pertinent article at all....

Your friend,

Gianfranco

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sdrom33
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Re: LW-MW-SW Relay Tuned 15' Noise Reducing Vertical Antenna

Post by sdrom33 » Mon Jul 08, 2019 9:56 am

I can see in Lankfort schematic a very good ground plane - that 4 to 8 foot long copper coated earth ground - the best ground plane etc. Etc......
Mike I really do not understand if this is just irony, just for laughs, or if you really believe in this nonsense you have written...You mean to state that this antenna is good just for Southern Louisiana? What about other guys living somewhere else? What about this ground plane at 1.8 Mhz? What about the so called "noise reducing properties" ? Perhaps you should give us your verdict on this subject too...Why carry on discussing such piece of (electrical) garbage? This is just a waste of time!

BTW, if one criticizes an author, then the author writes the "rebuttal", so perhaps glovisol should criticize, not make a rebuttal.

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glovisol
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Re: LW-MW-SW Relay Tuned 15' Noise Reducing Vertical Antenna

Post by glovisol » Mon Jul 08, 2019 11:05 am

Oh, Mike, forgot to mention I have been a member of IEEE for most of my professional life and presented my first paper on Vehicular Communications at the IRE (it was so called then) Convention of November 1966 in Montreal, Canada. Was aged 26 then, memories of long past glory....With sympathy,

glovisol

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glovisol
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Re: LW-MW-SW Relay Tuned 15' Noise Reducing Vertical Antenna

Post by glovisol » Mon Jul 08, 2019 8:00 pm

Hi Ian,

I modestly and politely call your attention to the fact that, if three of your posts went wrong, perhaps some responsibilty should be placed at your door. In a Forum, in any Forum, which as you rightly say, is there to help, if somebody propagates fake information (the equivalent of nowadays fake news) it is the responsibility of other Forum members to set the record straight. To do it politely, but firmly, never the less.

Surely nobody is the depositary of Holy Revelation, never the less there must be a limit between serious engineering information and wrong and injustified stories based on experimental whims or claims with no technical background whatsoever. So our debate, as all technical debates, has been and is NOT a gym, or a bush to have duels, as you seem to think, but an opportunity to propagate down to earth expertise within the cultural and technical limitations of the various participants. Were this action not taken, the reputation of our Forum as well as our individual reputation would certainly suffer.

As it seems, this debate has had, among others, the positive result of convincing Mike and you (and innocent bystanders) that this "little noise reducing 15' whip antenna" is just a technological dead end to be carefully avoided.

The last point I wish to make, regards the wrong use, which has become a sort of habit, by many Forum members to upload references to this or that work in order to uplift their own concepts or opinions. This, in my modest opinion, is a valid practice that has its limit in the degree of understanding the proponent of the reference has on the matter debated by the document in question. My opinion being that one should wisely abstain to refer to documents that he himself does not understand.

Best regards,

glovisol

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vk7jj
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Re: LW-MW-SW Relay Tuned 15' Noise Reducing Vertical Antenna

Post by vk7jj » Mon Jul 08, 2019 11:22 pm

Hi Ian, it's a good thread, it's brought out lots of things and highlighted good bits and bad bits in antennas and in us.

Hi Mike,

The ground plane:
I don't see a reference to any ground plane in Lankford's diagram, only a wire leading to an earth rod. Let's assume the Lankford earth is a perfect earth so we don't have to debate it's merits.

The feed line and remote relay show Lankford intended not only the whip to be mounted remotely (presumably up in the air) but also the toroid matching system.

That means we left with with an "earth wire" going from the antenna down to the perfect earth. A long one. With the emphasis on long.

I'd like to hear your analysis of what that's likely to do? What effect might it have?

I see that ground wire as the likely main useful element in the antenna, hence my description of it as an off-centre-fed vertical doublet. What do you think?


The MMANA calculation:
It's great that you're into modelling, I'd love to see how large that inductor would have to be, if you've got a copy of EasyNEC or some alternative would you mind running the calc and posting the result?

At the halfway point when MMANA hit its limit the inductance required was already 9999 uH.
A 9999 uH loading coil with a diameter of 1cm would require 203,981 turns and even when close wound would be a stunning 40.796 meters long.


Re. "Optimizing the Receiving Properties of Electrically Small HF Antennas'
I have had a good look at it, thanks for the reference.
While it would be fun to debate its merits I don't follow how it's relevant to the antenna we are discussing given the vagaries of the ground wire, as just one point of disqualification.


Finally
I'm still left gobsmacked by this claim from Lankford: "This small antenna has excellent performance from 150KHz..."

Let's use an online ground plane caclulator, eg. https://m0ukd.com/calculators/quarter-w ... alculator/

A ground plane on 150KHz is shown to be 475 meters tall.
A 15 foot whip (approx 5m) is 1/95th of that quarter wave.

To put that in perspective a 27MHz CB whip that's 2.6m long would be 27 millimetres in length.

I don't think there would be many people out there who would consider calling a 27mm long 27MHz CB whip an "excellent performer".

Anyway, I've had enough. Thanks for your input.

Regards,

Phil

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sdrom33
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Re: LW-MW-SW Relay Tuned 15' Noise Reducing Vertical Antenna

Post by sdrom33 » Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:59 am

Hi Phil,
Too bad your effort for analysing the proposed whip antenna has fallen on deaf ears. It is also too bad nobody thanked you for your work: on my part I gratefully thank you. I do not understand the reason why one should be offended if you presented a learned judgement warning that the antenna he uses, or intends to use, or proposes, has certain caveats, this is against logic, but this is what we have seen in this thread.

Far from being offended, but really thrilled, I understand the problems with the TCM exercise: it is not small, has no gain and is more susceptible to noise intake than other antennas. You wrote about a "small" 20 m loop, but how small is small? May I ask you to expand a little on this antenna? What would happen should I wish to use it on 40 m as well?

Cheers,

Thomas

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glovisol
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Re: LW-MW-SW Relay Tuned 15' Noise Reducing Vertical Antenna

Post by glovisol » Tue Jul 09, 2019 3:02 pm

In all fairness, I hate to leave loose ends.

My feeling is that I have honestly and painstakingly contributed to this thread to the best of my abilities and I do not accept that Forum members publicly declare this thread "toxic" because some contributors and myself have dared to contradict them on purely technical grounds, showing that the antenna design they were presenting and praising had no value whatsoever and that the main reference one on them indicated did not have the slightest bearing on the matter at hand.

The very meaning of Integrity is to defend one's opinions and beliefs in good faith, but, when one has no more arguments and realises he has made a mistake, integrity suggests to simply and quickly admit the mistake. It is so simple to admit to have made a mistake!

Surely to depict oneself as a "victim" by bad guys who are there to distill "poison" and turn a thread "toxic", definitely is not a way to behave. When this behaviour comes from someone you considered a friend, sorrow is even greater.

glovisol

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glovisol
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Re: LW-MW-SW Relay Tuned 15' Noise Reducing Vertical Antenna

Post by glovisol » Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:38 pm

Hi Phil,

I AM SIMPLY AMAZED!!

I have been following your exchange with Sdrom33 on loop antennas and I was (I must confess) a little skeptical and suspicious of your stories about miracles of loop antennas, so, in want of anything better to do, being at the sea side in Sardinia, in a flat at the 3rd storey, with sultry, rainy and very hot weather and with an RSPduo and no antenna on my hands, I decided to take you to task.

I went downstairs, stole a wooden pallet from an abandoned pile in a corner, removed two planks, made a cross, stuck 4 screws at the cross tips, put in a piece of elecrical cable all around and let the thing be, as it was mid afternoon. Half an hour ago (19:45 local time) I tie the cross on the small balcony (see pic. below) connect it to the HI Z input of the duo tru the usual ferrite low noise transformer and turn SDRuno ON.

This is simply unbelivable!! Full band at 40 and at 20 m: radio hams coming in as if it was raining RF. I am now planning to make a second "antenna" & run Diversity. Noise level is also impressive. Why should we all be in quest for other small antennas seems very difficult to believe, at this stage, dr Lankford permitting.

Will report more poor man's adventures in the next few days. The problem is....my wife will not allow me to drill a hole thru the window frame yet again at the sea side flat too.

Gianfranco
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Two planks from a discarded pallet, 8 wood screws, a few cm of electric wire, a low noise ferrite xformer and some elbow grease and here is the perfect portable small HF antenna...
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glovisol
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Re: LW-MW-SW Relay Tuned 15' Noise Reducing Vertical Antenna

Post by glovisol » Tue Jul 09, 2019 7:04 pm

A little later...

Now, if a loop 0.81 square meters can give me this result, it is mind boggling to imagine what I will get with the 50 m side square loop (i.e. 2500 square meters I can set up in August, when I get back home.

The important point is, we are on a solid rock foundation of theory here, not some kind of make believe black magic.
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vk7jj
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Re: LW-MW-SW Relay Tuned 15' Noise Reducing Vertical Antenna

Post by vk7jj » Wed Jul 10, 2019 2:39 am

Mike2459 wrote:Phil:
I understand that Ian has left. This topic has turned toxic and I have blocked two of the protagonists. As a result, I'll make no further comments on this topic.
Hi Mike, if you think it's toxic, help turn it around, stick to commenting on the tech issues and don't let people get under your skin. I'd like to see your replies to my questions please!

Same comment goes to the several people who emailed me wanting to carry on the discussion outside of the forum.

It's natural that we disagree with each other, it's our innate non-logical emotively driven diversity, that's how humanity has survived. Otherwise that single big group of us all living together in that one large tribe would have all been wiped out when the meteor hit or the drought struck and we'd all be chasing the same girlfriends and eating the same foods and driving the same cars... :shock:

Phil

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