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I've been doing mostly HF for the last 20 years and just recently installed a 2m/70cm mobile rig in my shack for base station work. I like to work FM simplex and repeaters when the HF bands are not cooperating, and would like to build a beam for those bands.

What negative or positive impacts would a circular polarized beam have for terrestrial communications? An uneducated assumption would be that it would work well for both repeater work (vertical polarized) and SSB/CW (horizontal polarized).

(I'm also interested in having one antenna that I can use for satellite work in the future if the compromise is small)

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    $\begingroup$ If you build a crossed yagi antenna, you can make it switchable between V and CP with a relay. Looking EME forums for L/RHCP switching schematics. $\endgroup$
    – tomnexus
    Dec 29, 2015 at 5:55

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Circular polarization can be seen as half horizontal and half vertical polarization. Therefore, between a circularly polarized antenna and a linearly polarized antenna, half the signal will be lost (-3 dB gain).

The only disadvantages of a circularly polarized antenna are that loss and the additional complexity (phasing, mechanical structure, weight). If you're OK with that, go right ahead!

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