This isn't adressed SPECIFICALLY to the "Miracle Whip"
(want a sandwich yet?) but to ANY of these miniature
money traps.
Remember the Gotham verticals?
"'All band vertical!' asked [sic] one skeptic. 'Twenty
meters is murder these days. Let's see you make a contact
on twenty meter phone with low power!' ..." (Jul 1969
CQ, page 112)
Imagine the Gotham vertical shrunk from 18 feet to three
feet, with corresponding reduction in performance. Of
course, the Gotham verticals cost less than twenty bucks.
And over elevated radials, or a LOT of 'em, or a swamp,
they probably DID work OK. Today they haunt old barns,
from which their influence invades the receptive minds
of those of us who want small antennas to work like beams.
"Let's see you make a contact on low power..."
I DID work JA and 3D2AG handheld, with a RS 22-inch ten
meter antenna. And in 11 years I may do it again; eventually
even a blind worm catches a robin.
Saw two JA-made BNC antennas at HRO this weekend, IIRC a
40/15/6 meter and an *80*/20/10 meter whip. They are about
30 inches long. SOMEONE will buy 'em. At $90. Each.
GO GOTHAM!
Cortland
