Ever notice how no ambc station uses a horizontal antenna?
This is due most ambc stas are focused on the local market, and the local market is listening during the daytime for the most part. Since the target audience listens during the day, the sun is out, and that creates a huge problem for ambc signals. The sun energises the D layer in the idunnosphere, and the D layer eats ambc sigs like no other.
So the way around that is to use vertical polarisation as that polarity is devoured least by the D layer.
That being said, at night when the D layer dissipates and the F layers merge into one super F layer and the ambc dx is rolling, once a sig hits the F layer the originating polarisation goes out the window and can be anything, even rotating.
So the question is, do you want to rx local daytime sigs or nighttime?
If local daytime sigs, a vertical will be your best bet, if dx is desired, pretty much anything should work.
And yes, as you questioned, low dipoles are worm heaters, you have to be up about a halfwave to really reduce the ground losses, but higher would be better. Simply getting the feedpoint of a inverted v up above 1/4w helps, as the feedpoint is where current is max and that is where the radiation is most intense. The ends, the high voltage do not touch points, can be low to the ground, just don't touch em.
Topic: Inverted V yagi aiming up into the sky (Read 2785 times)
