i could certainly be misunderstanding the pretty pics , but it looked to me like there was a great deal more gain on the lower lobes with the horizontal ground elements than on the other pretty pics . it also looks (to me) like the lower the angle of the elements the more of a "cloud warmer" effect it has . hopefully someone has used a imax with both sloped and horizontal ground elements and can share any differences they noticed in their actual results using them .
Nope, you didn't misunderstand the pictures, the high angle lobes do tend to show something that I often find unpredictable in models, you saw that right. I suspect that most often it is the presence of radials that tends to push up the higher lobes or make make them more pronounced. At other times this might do something totally different to the model. I haven't figured out yet, what controls such situations, but I think it has mostly has to do with the current results in the antenna, than it does with a particular physical arrangement of the elements. You see that right I think, but your are trying to change the subject, those lobes don't help us much working our radios.
What you got confused was that Cebik was talking about
changing the radiation angles close to the horizon where they are most important, and I was talking about a
change in gain for the models when changing the angle for the radials.
I'll have to admit however, that sometimes the gain changes for the good and sometimes for the bad, when the mast is radiating big currents like the image with 4 radials I posted, and the image with 4 radials at 20* degree slant. In this case the models went bad, but with other heights maybe or possibly with other radial lengths...such changes in gain could go the other way. I didn't test for height and compare different radials lengths for the Imax, so there is more to consider. I know you don't trust modeling, but don't come back later and try to tell me I didn't consider this or that in this thread, because you would be right, I didn't do it...YET!
If these models tend to even be close to the facts, and that is real hard to say, then hopefully the guys designing the antennas we use are considering such things in their design. Hopefully when we install these antennas we're lucky, and do it at a beneficial height. Plus, even the soil under the antenna and it pattern maybe for a long way off from the base, can effect performance in good ways and then maybe not so much.
This is why I try not to be categorical in my claims, but you just missed the important word distinctions between what I posted about, and what Cebik meant in the quote that Bob gave us.<gotproof>
Well Tech 833, reported his results, but if his total claim was true, then he was on a Field Test Range, and he may have been able to tell. IMO, this is not enough difference that I could tell using my radio maybe, and I think most claims from other guys probably suggest the same no difference in results...might also be true.
