On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 10:37:10 -0500, "Crazy George"
wrote:

Howard:

See, here's the problem. If those guys are tied to a metal mast on one end
and ground on the other, then you have no idea what the electrical length
is. And, if the mast is grounded as it is supposed to be, then the mast,
ground and guy form a loop which is dangerous even in the "non-resonant"
mode. And the SWR test is a very insensitive test. Although if forward
gain is the primary criteria, then you are likely OK, but on HF, where front
to back and front to side ratios are important, then guy reradiation can be
significant enough to mess those up without showing up on SWR.

Thanks for the additional info/perspective. I realize the SWR is only
a portion of the picture, though the only element I can actually
measure. F/B isn't much of an issue for me, from where I live most of
the directions I point my beam has the back pointing to the ocean.
The difficulty in adding insulators is that I don't do work on the
roof anymore & the handyman whom I've been using for such tasks is
pretty heavily booked these days. In any case, once he's free it's
not a huge task and with the worst case being no difference and the
best case being a better radiation pattern this is now on my list of
things to get done.

Thanks George and Bill for your input!

73,
Howard