Drifter,
leave it alone and use it.
verticals also exhibit varying characterisitics over different types of soil. out here in the desert the last thing we want to do is capacitively couple the antenna to lossy earth ground so we put them up high in the desert. path obstructions aren't much of a problem out here either. needless to say, with the feedpoint a wavelength above lossy soil, ground losses are minimized. the fact of the matter is that there are so many variables that have to be satisfied before any predictable behavior could be determined. everyones situation is uniquely different to one degree or another. the previous is a case-in-point.
or you could just use it where it is for 6 months or so and evaluate its performance yourself. keep a record too so if you do make any changes you can check to see if any trends in performance (change in TO<, noise floor, lobe symmetry, etc.) result from any of them. the bottom line is that you're in a much better position to judge the performance of your antenna than anyone else, so do it. in the meantime some of us in here will struggle to explain the why of it all. bear with us.
leave it alone and use it.
verticals also exhibit varying characterisitics over different types of soil. out here in the desert the last thing we want to do is capacitively couple the antenna to lossy earth ground so we put them up high in the desert. path obstructions aren't much of a problem out here either. needless to say, with the feedpoint a wavelength above lossy soil, ground losses are minimized. the fact of the matter is that there are so many variables that have to be satisfied before any predictable behavior could be determined. everyones situation is uniquely different to one degree or another. the previous is a case-in-point.
or you could just use it where it is for 6 months or so and evaluate its performance yourself. keep a record too so if you do make any changes you can check to see if any trends in performance (change in TO<, noise floor, lobe symmetry, etc.) result from any of them. the bottom line is that you're in a much better position to judge the performance of your antenna than anyone else, so do it. in the meantime some of us in here will struggle to explain the why of it all. bear with us.
