POTA PERformer — Challenger — Dominator — And the Real “Dominator”

Portable HF is having a moment: POTA, SOTA, quick activations, fast setup, low weight, and antennas that are “good enough” to get you on the air. That’s genuinely valuable. Greg Mihran (KJ6ER) deserves credit for publishing practical, buildable ideas that help real operators get outside and make contacts.

This article is a technical critique of how performance is framed in “engineering-looking” PDFs. It is not a critique of people having fun, making QSOs, or building portable antennas that work.

The uncomfortable reality

A write-up can be useful and still be scientifically fragile. The moment the writing shifts from “this works for me” into “here are hard numbers that prove performance,” without the validation discipline those numbers require, the document stops being engineering and starts becoming folklore with a PDF cover.

That folklore is what ends up dominating the hobby.

So who is the real Dominator?
Not a tripod vertical. Not a counterpoise. Not a transformer ratio.

The real Dominator is the story—especially the story that looks scientific.

The antennas can work. That’s not the argument.

Let’s be explicit:

• A resonant elevated quarter-wave with elevated tuned radials can absolutely make contacts.
• A portable “half-wave-ish” system with a transformer and a return conductor can absolutely make contacts.
• Even systems with messy current distributions, feedline participation, and imperfect matching can absolutely make contacts.

The argument is not “it can’t work.” The argument is: when tidy plots + tidy math + confident conclusions are presented like portable truth, myth generation begins.

How these papers turn into myths

1. Run a clean NEC model (or several).
2. Extract a few clean numbers (gain at one angle, F/B, return loss, etc.).
3. Mix categories (match, loss, gain, efficiency) into one “performance story.”
4. Present results like they are stable in the field, even while the document admits deployment changes with ground, near field, and feedline behavior.
5. The community repeats headline numbers because they’re easy to repeat.

The category error that fuels the hype loop

The “96% efficient at 1.5:1 SWR” line, unpacked

If SWR = 1.5:1 then |Γ| = (SWR−1)/(SWR+1) = 0.2, so reflected power is |Γ|² = 0.04 (4%). That yields 1 − 0.04 = 0.96 (96%)—but that’s mismatch efficiency only.

It tells you nothing about how much accepted power is radiated vs lost in:

• transformer loss
• choke loss (and finite choke impedance)
• return path / ground loss
• conductor and joint resistance (telescoping whips, clamps, tripod hardware)
• feedline radiation and common-mode participation

“No radials” is wordplay when a counterpoise is required

A counterpoise connected to the system ground is an RF return conductor. Functionally, in a monopole-ish system, that’s a radial element—whether it’s one wire, multiple wires, the coax shield, a tripod leg, or your body.

Rebranding the return path doesn’t change physics. In portable setups, the return path is often where the “magic” (or the mess) lives.

“Half-wave” becomes a story when the system is what’s resonating

Here’s the practical engineering gut-check:

• If the radiator is not truly near a half wavelength in the deployed environment, and
• if a significant return conductor is attached at the feed, and
• if feedline/common-mode behavior is not controlled and documented,

…then you can certainly get resonance and QSOs, but you cannot keep borrowing “textbook half-wave vertical” expectations without proving them for this geometry under these conditions.

Try to map reality to the plot. If your “halfwave” is no halfwave anymore, it won’t match the neat NEC plot anymore.

Why the hobby doesn’t critique “engineering-looking PDFs”

• Hams are conflict-avoidant. People don’t want to ruin anyone’s fun.
• Real critique is high-effort: it takes careful research, deliberate reasoning, and re- evaluation—not gut feelings, anecdotes, or “trust me bro” impressions.
• Portable HF is inherently noisy as an experiment: QSB, soil moisture, shifting geometry, and inconsistent feedline routing.
• Authority bias is strong when someone publishes a PDF with plots, tables, and formulas.
• We confuse “I made contacts” with “the claims are proven.” QSOs prove function, not claimed efficiency, gain, or repeatability.

What “more validation” looks like in a hobby setting

Publish assumptions, not just outputs

If someone posts gain/efficiency numbers from NEC, publish the model files and the assumptions that make the outputs interpretable:

• ground model and σ/εr values
• wire diameters/material assumptions
• segmentation and convergence checks
• how the feedline and choke were modeled (or why they were omitted)

Measure what’s hard to “wordsmith”

• Measure common-mode current on the coax (or at least do controlled feedline routing tests).
• Do A/B testing against a boring reference (dipole, known vertical with multiple radials) with consistent geometry and lots of samples.
• Use WSPR/FT8 SNR logs for distributions, not single “it seemed louder” moments.

Treat small dB differences like scientific data

If the claimed advantage is 1–3 dB, you need repeatability and distributions. Portable HF variability can eat 1 dB for breakfast.

Use conditional language when the physics is conditional

HF reality is full of “tends to,” “often,” and “depends.” When a document swaps that language for certainty (“96% efficient,” “2× gain,” “no radials”), it crosses from a helpful guide into a myth generator.

The fair conclusion

These portable systems can be meaningful. They solve real problems: speed, portability, simplicity. That matters.

But the way performance is framed can invite misunderstanding:

• Mismatch efficiency gets repeated as antenna efficiency.
• Transformer insertion loss gets retold as “system efficiency.”
• “No radials” becomes semantics while a return conductor is required.
• “Half-wave” becomes a label even when system behavior depends on counterpoise + environment.
• Small modeled pattern differences get promoted like reliable field advantages.

Use the antennas. Enjoy them. Recommend them as practical portable solutions.
But don’t repeat the clean numbers as clean truth unless they’ve earned it through disclosure and validation.

Because in the end, the real Dominator isn’t a whip on a tripod.

It’s our willingness to accept scientific-looking stories without the critique culture that makes science… science.

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