Mounting FM antennas on towers

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 00:26:03 -0400, "Chris Hall" <chris2526@comcast.net> said:

> There is a real science to the mounting of FM antennas on towers and
> structures called pattern studies which can cost upwards of $30,000
> dollars depending on the situation.  Antenna manufacturers build
> appropriate sized scale tower models and place an element on an
> antenna range. They will then send you many horizontal and vertical
> patterns for you to choose which best suit your needs.

I'm curious why they still do this.  The physics is well within our
ability to do computational modeling, so there should no longer be any
need to build an actual physical model.  If the AM people can "proof"
their directional arrays using a computational model (method of
moments) and some simple measurements, it should be possible to model
VHF antennas the same way.

-GAWollman