Well gamegetter, I can't disagree with you much, I too have a high regard for my Starduster and Starduster styled Marcon X antennas. W8JI claims aside, my thinking on this subject comes from personal experience only, but I tend to agree with him, while it seems the whole rest of the world thinks the 1/4 wave radiator just produces wasted RF.
I've never been able to convince anyone what I see, change their minds, or give them pause to consider, but I think I'm close with my observations. I can't always claim that my SD'r models will produce the best signal RX/TX, but I don't think I've ever lost a contact either, local or DX, while switching from one to the other. And, when conditions are quite, these little antennas really seem to shine with an excellent receive quality. The only thing I find that comes near in this regard...might be my Gain Master, a New/Old Top One, or a horizontal yagi beam. On the other hand when conditions are noisy, everything acts about the same regarding noise at my location.
Regarding the Merlin, if it had radials that were slanted down near the same as my SD'r or my Marconi, then I think it should work about the same and maybe even enough better to see it in operation.
For me, both of my antennas, with 1/4 wave radiators, operate at or near the center of CB with a little reactance at the feed point. If I try to tune it out by adjusting the element length, then the resonance is even more so ill-affected and the resistance and reactance grow further apart. On the other hand the resistance for both is pretty steady at around 50 ohms, and that is good. So, the match is still pretty good, and the bandwidth is excellent, so they work well for me not-with-standing the excess reactance.
My thinking is, however, that maybe the Merlin, with the matching coil right below the top hat, is able to provide and even better reactive match, maintaining the resistive quality, and maybe show a little extra gain as a result. If so, will it be enough to see operating my radio? I DON'T KNOW!
But I hope one day to be able to test that idea that Terry uses in his design with my ground plane design below it...and see. IMO, the radials really must be slanted down more than 55 makes his on the Merlin, so I would like to be able to place his top radiator over my radials slanted down at about 27* degrees or less, while using my custom made A99 styled GPK hub, and see just how if works in that configuration.
I am a big proponent of antennas that are constructed with symmetry and balance of design in mind.
