Working successfully is another thing wide open to interpretation , my interpretation is being consistantly able to work long distance f layer prop when its around, if your interpretation is working short hop/sporadic e or the guy along the street not to mention half the tv's in the street, then i guess it could be classed as successful, bottom line is if i buy an antenna, i expect to find it all in the box, not half of it. just because a lot of people swear by them don't mean its good, just that antron/solarcon marketing swallowed in the gullible in huge numbers, you know like all those people who used to think our planet was flat.
i consider the whole of the european union as local work, not dx, or to be more technical, one hell of a lot of qrm.
you want to know what i really think, then here goes:
you talk of what i say of having no real value, then straight after, go into paragraphs about guys "switching antennas". your totally missing the point Eddie, if the antennas are switched through a switch which may not even have equal port losses, not to mention the fact you are now dealing with two antennas, on different masts, probably at different heights spaced apart, no doubt using different types and lengths of coax and seeing completely different propagation path/s, if ever there was a case of no real value, you just covered it mate.
would i believe the results i saw?
totally irrelevant, as the playing field is not level, unless you use the antennas on same mast, with same coax/accessories within a very short timescale to minimise the effect of changing propagation conditions and a constant carrier mode with a highly accurate step attenuator, then i won't even waste my time watching the video or reading the results because they are totally meaningless due to far too many variables being allowed, not to mention i would insist it was repeated several times before i even began to believe it, i'm a very hard person to convince and an even harder person to bullshit.
if you tried to convince the science world of any new theory under the conditions/variables you accept yourself and accept in all of the videos, you would be laughed at, i'm sorry Eddie, i know its not what you wanted to hear, but it is my HONEST opinion.
as for s units and s meter readings, 99.999% of them should be beside Alice in wonderland, s units on a cb could vary between about .0001 db and about 20db there is that much inaccuracy in those meters, they are not serious test equipment. i'd rather trust my hearing than an s meter, far more accurate as i'm sure bob 85 will testify too, as its something we have both talked about many times, but it still isn't accurate, only top notch test gear is, that reads in real db's not fantasy ones, i'm certain bob has told you this even more times than i have.
i do understand its the only way you can do it due to health and local numpties, and i'm not knocking that, but you must see where i'm coming from, i need more accuracy and minimal variables including repeat results to be convinced, one video convinces me of nothing.
one thing we'll always agree on though is the attributes of the humble underrated starduster.
