HUH? Are you implying that I'm wrong?
Now remember, unless I'm mistaken, I'm never wrong!
...once I thought I was wrong but I was mistaken.
NB, I appreciate the humor, but I think you've used that line before. That said I do have some questions though (
in bold type) and maybe a request or two.
The real secret is in the tuning. It's important to have the driven cut correctly & matched well for lowest SWR/reactance, but equally important, if not even MORE SO, to have the reflector dialed in, not just ballpark close - like most quads come out of the box.
It is true all beams need to be tuned and/or adjusted in order to produce the characteristics desired for match, gain, and back and/or side rejection and this is not a secret or a mystery. There is also a more recent scheme that produces a so called optimized configurations. Personally, you'll note I tend to use a balanced design idea.
What did you use to generate your design dimensions?
I've found several calculators that did not produce similar results when I entered in the same dimensions for my 4 element horizontal quad design, the one I posted the other day here is this thread.
I will post the link below.
Click here: Quad reflector versus yagi reflector
Your reports of open and closing the band are surely obvious, it does happen, but how do you tell it is not just a lull with the conditions stretching out the band. If you turn on your radio and there is no traffic to start and you wait a while and you are then able to hear somebody making a call, does that make you the first.
Is this what you call opening the band, and similarly at closing making the last contact you hear?
Does the guy on the other end of the contact also have to have a quad?
If so, how do you know that?
A long time ago I produced some rather poorly done videos of some of my radio contacts, and when I posted them on the forum and guys were able to see what I was doing...I was soundly critized for the way I compared signals, and I was primarily doing only local contacts that I knew where and what they ran for an antenna. I did make an occasional DX contact however and you would have thought I had done a cardinal sin.
Now in the report above that Wavrider posted, we have an experienced radio operator with some fame going around the country with a mobile Yagi setup he could raise and making comparisons with folks he visited that had Quad antennas. According to his report he was doing long haul comparisons and I don't hear any uproar about him doing something similar to what I had done. Maybe the difference in part was I only did RX signals in my reports, and only occasionally did I get TX reports.
Do you think I got the where-what-for simply because I was comparing CB antennas?
How do you tell for sure what allows you to communicate while another guy in your area cannot?
I've experienced something similar many times, but I never attributed it to my antenna per se...I always considered it due to the environment and/or some other unknown conditions at the time. It would seem pretty presumptuous to think my antenna was the only difference if that happened to me.
I believe you really may have experienced the other issues you noted in your post about the Quad, like the antenna being very quiet. But, IMO having a lossy setup or and an old somewhat deteriorated feed line can also produce seeming quiet working receive, and still allow you to TX successfully...if conditions are favorable.
I have a CB buddy that worked a Starduster antenna up very high...maybe 60' feet. It was old, but still worked for him. Another buddy came by his house one day and told him his feed line looked like it was just hanging loose at a tie strap holding the line to the mast at about 30' feet high up. Chucky Boy was talking on his feed line,
and did not even realize it, and he never missed a contact as far as all of us other buddies around him could tell. I was close enough that he splattered RF on my station across the CB bandwidth too.
I have a 100' foot RG8x feed line with a clear coat cover I got from a buddy that ran an A99 with it for over 10 years. I worked that line until a local buddy convinced me I was not showing him any signal...even though I was talking to the same contacts as he was on his 5/8 wave JoGunn. I took the antenna down and I could easily see what looked like black mildew areas up and down the entire length of that line.
I checked the through put with an inline meter and a dummy load with 100 watts input...I saw only 10 watts at the other end, but I was still talking and just a fluke brought that to my attention. My SWR was also flat from Ahole to appetite and that didn't alert me either, these were surely signs of something going on that I did not understand at the time.
How do we really determine why and how these radio signals respond like we see them do some times?
Do you have a test you run that produces such results that tells you what you claim here?
How do you know you are really opening up the band?
Again, what Quad calculator did you use to get the dimensions for the Quad you talked about building for a buddy above?