Pay attention to what prcguy has to say. He knows what he's talking about. Other than that, my advice is to avoid a vertical antenna altogether, unless you are prepared to go the route, and do it right. The requirements for a counterpoise (ground) are severe if you expect it to actually work. Of all the antennas I've ever tried, I've found the doublet to be the most effective for the price. It's a dipole fed with ladder line, and a tuner. Make the dipole a vee, or whatever fits your available space, feed it with ladder line, and use a tuner. An autotuner that doesn't output to an SO239 works well, like an SGC tuner. If you can run ladder line to the shack without too many bends, or being near too much metal, that would work well.
Any vertical antenna MUST have a counterpoise. It can be a good ground, which is hard to do, or it can be radials, which is hard to do. The commercial vertical antennas that don't need a counterpoise are junk, and a complete ripoff.
The last statement you made is totally wrong. You are right if talking about any vertical except the Gap Brand, which are all vertical DIPOLES (they do have 3 horizontal counterpoise type wires for just one band, but they are different than the counterpoise's you see on all other verticals and I've never seen dipoles that suggest counterpoise wire). They are a vertical dipole, a completely different design from any other vertical. Unless you have had one and used it for a while, you can't make such a blanket statement, mine work fantastic (I have 2 and have used other verticals, which I would not buy for anything). The problem with most dipoles is that people are unable to get them to the correct height for them to work as they should.
Call Gap and request their literature, it does an excellent job of describing why the vertical dipole works so much better than a vertical with traps and hundreds of feet of counterpoise wire, then go to EHam and look at the reviews. You will find pages of people who love them and a few who don't.
I have made great DX contacts and broken through quite a few huge pile up's with my Gap's and 100 watts, they work as advertised.
You like dipoles, the Gap is a dipole and starts radiating from the middle of the antenna and does not have the ground interaction problems found in all other verticals or the noise of a horizontal from power lines. No need to put them high up on a pole to try to get them away from the ground, no hundreds of feet of counterpoise wire, they work and are designed to be placed at ground level. No traps with all of their problems either. They really are a fairly simple design that works, almost nothing to go bad on them like trapped verticals.
All of that said, every multi band antenna is a compromise. If you want the best performance, spend as much money as you can afford and make or buy a single band antenna for each band you want to use and be sure to have plenty of land to avoid interaction between antennas.
I know of few people who can get an 80 and 160 meter high enough to work their best or close to it and many have trouble with the 40 meters. That is where the horizontal or "V" dipole antennas have their problems.
Had I not bought a Gap antenna, I may believe as you do, but now having 2 of them and seeing just how well they work, I'm sold on them. Their design, which is 100% different from other verticals is what makes the difference. I get so many compliments on the air that I don't hear others getting also. If I can hear them, I can work them, anywhere in the world as long as conditions will allow or getting walked on by high power stations (not that I have, but it will transmit as well as any other good antenna).
Being a dipole, they are also way quieter than any other vertical, especially with the feed lines run inside of the antenna.
Ideally, a very expensive Yagi on a very high tower would be my first choice, but money being what it is or isn't today and the fact that I needed a multi band antenna that works in a smaller area, I'm glad I got what I did.
The Gap is not perfect, but you are going to have a very hard time finding a multi band antenna at a lower price that will do any better. You will find that 10 and 15 meters work better with a horizontal dipole at the correct height, but the other bands other than lowest band, my gap works as good or better than correctly set up dipoles. Also, every multi band vertical with 160 meters that I have seen is a dummy load and some of the verticals I've seen are dummy loads on all bands (mostly the cheaper one's). It works better on 160 than the Butternut that you have to spend an extra $210.00 to buy the coil for for the 160 meter band. It does not work as well as the single band 160 meter vertical antenna sold by DX Engineering, that takes up a huge amount of land and costs 4 times as much not including the miles of counterpoise wire you would need. Thing is, you will make contacts on 160 with the Gap Voyager, and decent one's. Maybe not all you would like to, but as was said, all multi band antennas are a compromise and it's always the very top and bottom bands that are not as good as the middle bands. If you are really serious about 160 meters, you will have to spend the money and have the space to put up an antenna made just for the 160 meter band.
The Gap antennas also requires no tuner and will have a maximum of 2 to 1 SWR on an antenna that covers 100% of every band except for the top band, SWR is usually much lower except for the band edges, usually the upper edge.
I also have several other types of antennas, mostly horizontal or inverted "V", they get used also, but not as much as my GAP unless I'm working the high bands, then it's a dipole at the correct height or a beam.
There are rare times when a dipole does work better on 20 or 40, but I think that has more to do with conditions, distance to the other station and direction. Many verticals are a rip off, but not this brand.
Sorry for the long post, but people should know that there are other choices beside a standard vertical when that type of antenna is needed or desired and the differences take more than just a few lines. And no, I have no ownership or interest in Gap.
73's John
