Buck Rogers K4ABT Handbook page 14

It goes without saying, (but I will anyway) HF beam antennas with long elements, and towers with guy-wires affixed near the top,
don't work well together when the beam is vertically polarized. Something will have to bend or break, either the guy-wire or the
element that are in each others path. For this and other reasons, most HF beams are horizontally polarized.
VOICE vs DIGITAL:
Don't be deceived by the heading of this section. I am not about to begin a rebuttal between these two modes. My intention is to
look into the types of antenna that is best suited for the digital mode of communications, as related to the antenna commonly used
for voice communications. From the beginning of this chapter, we have moved in this direction.
If it is distance you want, then the class of beam antenna that we use for voice will be sufficient. If it is coverage you prefer, again I
prefer the beam type antenna as a power booster. I tend to try for a happy medium with respect to the digital and/or packet modes.
The yagi type antenna, in a horizontal configuration is one way to go if you want coverage, and reduced wind resistance.
That happy medium I spoke of takes the form of a vertically polarized yagi and/or a cubical quad. My preference is the latter;
primarily because the "QUAD" is well known for its favorable gain/bandwidth characteristics.
There is a second, and more important reason I chose the cubicle QUAD. The cubicle quad offers a better signal to noise ratio
because influence from terrestrial noise is greatly reduced when receiving with a cubicle quad antenna. This inherent rejection to
terrestrial noise is one of the reasons we might consider the quad for use in a digital data medium.
A Packet Primer for the new Packeteer
; Packet Radio "The Basics" __ Page 14
Section 1