Hi NG

I am in the throes of building an omni for 2m and am trying to decide
between a "super jpole" and an extended double zepp. I have more or less
gone for 5/8 over 5/8 radiators with a center "hairpin" phasing section.

The J-Pole is of course fed through the usual "hairpin" arrangement at
the bottom of the antenna. The EDZ at the center phasing/hairpin section.

Okay so here are the questions/thoughts.

- I don't mind mind mounting on the side of the mast. The whole thing
will eventually be rotatable and the mast itself might be a useful
reflector for a few more dB of fwd gain. This also makes the EDZ
reasonably easy to feed.

- I know of the issues with radiating feedline and pattern lifting for
the jpole. Wondering if a 4:1 coaxial balun would resolve this and also
give a wider VSWR bandwidth?

- I also note the J-Pole hairpin/matching section is never quite
balanced as the load Z at the connected vs non connected ends skews it
some. (From cebik) To my mind this has two thoughts, is it worth skewing
the feed point (eg one side of the feedpoint 1/2" below the other) and
does (static/lighting) grounding the supposed electrically neutral point
affect the efficiency/pattern of the thing.

- Wondering if feeding from one end results in ohmic losses reducing the
radiation from the upper element. Thus skewing the pattern undesirably
upwards. I heard this use to be a big problem with early UHF coaxial
collinear antennas. Mounting upside down was supposedly a good fix!

- I had thought for ages that skying radiation from ground effects is
actually a function of the amount of radiation that goes at a downwards
angle. (ie a perfect antenna is one that doesn't radiate below the
"horizon" in free space) If one uses a 5/8 element for the antenna's
mentioned above the normal high lobe one gets might contribute to this
problem. In other words is it better to (say) use 3x1/2 wave rather than
2x5/8 wave elements in either an EDZ or JPole setup. (I'll be modeling
this for my own interest but would appreciate feedback)

- This of course begs the question as to whether one should even be
concerned about ground reflection on 2m with a 30ft mast!

This topic can of course be very exhausting. In my case though it is
more to decide which device to build.

Tnxs for any thoughts and ideas.

Bob W5/VK2YQA