The 50/50 Rule

I never really had an “Elmer.” However, I took a lot of advice from hams wiser and more experienced than I, and probably the best advice I ever received was the “50/50 rule.”

The 50/50 rule basically postulates: Whatever your budget for amateur radio, for every fifty cents you spend on equipment, spend fifty cents on your antenna system. Of course, that translates to fifty dollars, or five thousand dollars, or any other sum.

Why follow the rule? Simply because time, money and effort spent on antennas pays far greater dividends than the same time, money and effort spent on station equipment and accessories. Ask any “big gun” station owner, regardless of the bands he uses to make his mark on the ionosphere, or even the troposphere.

more at http://www.eham.net/articles/3625