[BC] Skirt feeds.....

[Cowboy]

On Saturday 20 February 2010 11:15 am, Craig Healy wrote:

>   I have seen the type
>  where wires are sent up the sides to increase the effective width of the
>  tower.   That probably would work to repair any bad tower section
>  connections as well. 

 Nope !
 Remember, the antenna current is in parallel, distributed among
 all of the parallel conductors, so a break in one will affect them all !

 There are all sorts of rumors about skirts being the cure-all magic bullet
 when they are FAR from it !
 Generally, you can analyze them in several ways, depending on your
 objective. 
 If as a radiator, you need to model it the same as any other.
 If as a feed method, then you can consider the skirt as merely the
 last reactive component of the ATU.
 If one is looking for the "magic" feed impedance, then the skirt is merely
 the last component in the ATU again, and should be analyzed as such.

 It's really not much different than questioning whether a 3 leg tower, or
 a 4 leg tower is the "better" radiator, or the better feed method.

-- 
Cowboy