The Myth of Takeoff Angle

Tom Rauch - W8JI

Note to readers. I copied and pasted W8JI’s article here so we can have a local copy to reference in Chapter 2.

The Myth of Takeoff Angle

Antenna discussions and articles often emphasize take off angle. We commonly read or hear that a low takeoff angle is good for DX, and that a high takeoff angle is good for local or short-range work. This is exactly what a good friend of mine, the author of one of the most popular antenna modeling programs, often showed angst over. He often expressed great reservation in including TOA in his software, but felt he had to include take off angle because people expected it. In fact, if we go to the help menu in most versions of his software and search for instructions on using TOA (or takeoff angle), help is not there!

So what is takeoff angle? How can we use it? Is it useful for anything? My answer to that, surprisingly to the great believers in TOA, is TOA is not worth anything by itself. Let us look at some examples, and see how little value TOA really…