----- Forwarded Message ---- From: George Badger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 3, 2008 7:26:13 PM Subject: Fw: [NCCC] Sunspots and SS ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: George Badger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: R. Dean Straw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; James Michener <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: NCCC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, November 3, 2008 7:08:30 PM Subject: Re: [NCCC] Sunspots and SS Dean Like insulated wire, SteppIR elements are well enclosed in dielectric tubes so they may not suffer from precipitation static. Can anyone confirm this? 73 George W6TC ----- Original Message ---- From: R. Dean Straw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: James Michener <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: NCCC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, November 3, 2008 1:40:36 PM Subject: Re: [NCCC] Sunspots and SS Jim: I've heard anecdotal reports that Beverage antennas made of insulated wire work better than Beverages made with uninsulated wire. Just because the reports are "anecdotal" doesn't mean that they are untrue, of course. When I had a station in New Hampshire, I made my Beverages with insulated wire. The Beverages worked in a predictable fashion on 40 and were worse, pattern wise, on 20. But they were definitely quieter than the Yagis when there was precip static going on. So the SNR was better for receiving. I would think that insulated-wire Yagis would be better for precip than the usual bare-tubing Yagis. That seems to be the conclusion you're coming to also. And yes, the top Yagi in a high stack acts as a precipitation drain, shielding the lower Yagi(s) some. Even a "snake" kind of antenna, with insulated wire lying on the ground (as W0YK mentioned), can help reception when precipitation static is happening. I'd caution you that if you live on a hilltop, placement of the your antennas compared to the upslope(s) to the hilltop can make a difference in precip problems. At one time, I lived on a tall hill in San Francisco, with about a 45 degree slope downwards in the south direction. Storms would come up from the south and swirl winds violently up that slope, hitting the antennas from below and creating real precip static (as well as breaking lots of antennas -- ask W6NL about this too). I didn't have the luxury of having another antenna on my small lot. But if I did have another antenna and if it were located back from the slope I would imagine that it would be better in terms of precip static. So, the difference between your dipole and the wire Yagi may also involve placement on your terrain, as well as the use of insulated wire. These things get complicated. I've been in whiteouts in southern New Hampshire, but nothing like what you get in/near VE2. I remember disconnecting coaxes and hearing the arcing inside the PL-259s when precip static was going on. 73, Dean, N6BV > -----Original Message----- > From: James Michener [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 12:53 PM > To: R. Dean Straw > Subject: Re: [NCCC] Sunspots and SS > > > It rained here hard all Saturday night. I have wire antennas. The > 40 meter 2 element beam. The DE is a folded dipole and the Reflector > is insulated wire at about 60 feet. The other an 80 meter cage > dipole made with multiple #12 AWG not insulated copper weld wires at > about 100 feet. They are not at all close together. Both are fed > with open wire and both are tuned with (separate) old KW Johnson > Matchboxes. The rain static noise on the dipole was awful. The 40 > meter beam didn't any problems. I wonder how much having an > insulated antenna helped in keeping down the rain static. I did > more contacts on 80m in the final hour than I did Saturday night... > (I gave up early Saturday night due to the 80m static.) > > With vertically stacked Yagis, this top antenna can acts as a static > drain... In my case with 100 feet of horizontal separation, there is > little static draining effect... so some of the difference was > height... but some of the difference maybe insulation. > > I thought the difference was largely due to insulation and not > height... but I could be wrong. > > BTW... I went to college up near Quebec and when they get a dry snow, > you have never heard static sooooo bad. It wipes out local 50KW AM > stations. There isn't insulation thick enough that would help. I > had a 2m whip on the car and the static would arc the coax while > corona balls jumped off (or on) the end of the whip. You really > shouldn't be driving in that, since it was a white out. > > Jim K9JM > > > At 11:55 AM 11/3/2008, you wrote: > > >I wasn't talking about powerline interference when I spoke about > >"precipitation static." The noise comes from the electrical charges on > >individual raindrops (or snowflakes) in a storm. These raindrops > discharge > >when they physically strike your antenna. At K6TA, which is located on a > >hill, the precip static was often S9 + 20 dB and would typically > last for 10 > >minutes or so before gradually fading down. Then the next wave > of rain would > >come and the static would build up again. > > > >The higher your antenna is off the ground, generally the worse you > >experience this kind of noise. You can really tell this if you have > >vertically stacked Yagis. The bottom ones may be virtually free of noise > >while the top one may show S9+ noise. > > > >Here's a URL to a Boulder government site: > >http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/dir-028/_4096.htm about precipitation > >static. > > > >73, Dean, N6BV > _______________________________________________ NCCC mailing list (http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/nccc) Post to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Manage your subscription at: http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/options/nccc Archives at: http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/private/nccc/ _______________________________________________ NCCC mailing list (http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/nccc) Post to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Manage your subscription at: http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/options/nccc Archives at: http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/private/nccc/ _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. 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