Sunday, Dec 30, 2007 at 14:28
Andrew, lots of people subscribe to the longer is better theory, although many females might disagree.
Be sure that when you
test such things that you do a direct comparison ie the standard whip against the longer one. Don't forget to retune between the two.
Also remember that such tests are often highly subjective, unless the receiver has a signal strength meter and you are using a field strength meter with the transmitter.
As long as the vertical whip will still tune as a quarter wave, you should be OK, but its performance might change on the higher frequencies. Try it on whatever frequencies you have rather than just one.
Another factor which comes into play is the capture length ie the longer the tuned aerial, the greater signal strength...sometimes :))
Obviously the standard whip is useable on the move, and won't tend to catch as many branches.
My own tests with longer and shorter whips simply confirm that the shorter ones don't tune as low in frequency as the longer ones, rather than signal strength differences. But my longer whips tend to be much shorter than the one you are talking about.
FollowupID:
543055