The thing about the "low angle of radiation" is that what's important is
that you have radiation along the correct angle of radiation. That is
generally thought as being a low angle, but that may or may not be
true. It depends on what the ionosphere is doing. You also have 3db or
so gain in particular directions with a dipole that you don't have with
a vertical. Lastly, it may just be the noise you're receiving, or lack
thereof, that makes the difference.
And then there are the imponderables. A long time ago, I had a
full-sized 80m dipole (at 20 feet or so) at my parent's place and no 10m
antenna because I didn't have any place to put one. One of my friends
suggesting hanging an "8 foot piece of wire" from the "hot side" of the
dipole, and using that as a kind of an upside-down vertical. I didn't
have any decent copper wire, so I wound up using some 12-gauge aluminum
ground wire my dad had bought, and I didn't have any way of attaching it
to the stranded copper of the 80m dipole, and it was too stiff to wrap
it around, so I kind of just folded the aluminum wire over the copper
wire. The aluminum was so light, the wind would blow it up on the roof
of the house, so I put some washers on the end, although they didn't
really do a thing to help keep the antenna vertical.
But I had a 10m antenna to attach to my HW-100, and right after I set it
up, I heard a KL7 calling CQ on SSB, and I went back to him. After
exchanging signal reports, I said something like "I don't hear anybody
else calling you, you wanna talk for a while." And he said something,
"No, I've got a bunch of stations calling me, you just had the strongest
signal." I've always been boggled by this. That's just about the
crappiest antenna I can think of, and all I had was a 100-watt radio and
I had the strongest signal? Go figure.
On 1/12/2016 9:57 AM, Michael Rapp via BVARC wrote:
Thanks, Rick, Bill, and Gary. That explains a lot. So many variables
here.
What is fascinating to me is that my dipole seems to be outperforming
my vertical for DX (or at least certain DX). After all, I worked
Reunion Island off the dipole, which is in an area on the planet I had
given up reaching with my vertical.
Phrased in a different way....there is must be something superior to
my particular installation of the dipole that overcomes the low-angle
radiation of the vertical I have. (At least in the limited and
anecdotal data points I have.)
73,
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/*/-=[Michael / KT5MR]-=/*/
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Jonathan Guthrie KA8KPN
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