At 03:17 PM 3/27/2008, Bill Dzurilla wrote:
I have just been involved with the sats since February and also wanted an omni for base station use
...
Have not tried the Lindenblad. Not many are using it or talking about it, so I doubt it is all that great.
Dear Friends,
I want to help remove any doubt.
You cannot buy a Lindenblad for the ham bands. That is a major reason why that they are not so popular.
In terms of performance though, a few data points may help illustrate. This snapshot is for 2m antennas mounted at 6' elevation (like I do for field day)
1. At 5 degrees elevation, a Lindy has about 5 dB higher gain to satellites with circular polarization versus an eggbeater. That is pretty significant if you want to work max DX. Of course mounting the antennas higher will also help.
2. At 15 degrees elevation, the Lindenblad is only about +2 dB higher gain than an eggbeater for circularly polarized satellites (mostly insignificant.) But...
3. at the same 15 degrees, on satellites with linearly polarized antennas, a Lindenblad will show only about 5 dB max fading from polarization mismatch versus nearly 25 dB max fading using an eggbeater. That is pretty significant.
So, the eggbeater is probably the best omni antenna you can buy for working DX on the LEO satellites.
But, in terms of performance, the Lindenblad is a better antenna if you are willing to build one.
73, Tony AA2TX