Let me try and clear up the reason why my mast is on the inside of the bend in the main bracket.
It is just because at the time I made it I was thinking that it should be that way to be optimum due to being more symmetrical, centering everything around the mast and on the mast centerline. I used AutoCAD to draw it all up and determine the angle of the bends in the main bracket to achieve this.
Not realizing that it may be of greater importance. I was thinking that the Avanti antenna may have been made the way it was because it would be just plain less expensive to manufacture. After all, if the antenna still worked satisfactory and tests show negligible change, and cheaper to manufacture I bet that most companies will opt for the less expensive way. They did have to compete with a lot of others at the time and like all companies watch cost. Case in point, the loop on the bottom in the factory design is not centered around the mast either. How does this affect the theoretical optimum? What about the diameter of the mast pole? What about the sheet metal clamps that hang on the radials, loop and mast? Personally I don’t like sharp points and edges on antennas and its brackets. All of these things lead me to want to believe that optimal performance was sacrificed to some degree in favor of cost.
In my attempt to optimize this antenna cost is not the issue, quality is. So some or all of my changes will have to be proven against the original to assure that the performance is at least not suffering from the original design, hence this thread.
I just have a hard time thinking that the spacing of the lower radials just happen to be optimal at exactly 6” The fact that the lower elements are not in a parallel plane as the mast and all of the above items mentioned have to be exactly as they are.
See the photos of the original main bracket vs. my home made version for comparison. If the mast has to be offset then I could move it to the other side of the main bracket. But this in turn will offset the loop at the bottom of the antenna unless the lower radials have a compound curve. The TO copy with the offset now has me wondering all the more.
So time will tell when the two are compared. I should get my butt out there and get to work.
