On flat terrain, on 10M FM with 50 watts and a 1/4 wave groundplane at 30ft on both ends for the "link", you should be able to work each other at distances of 20-30 miles with no problem. I've done this quite regularlly on 29.6MHz-35Mhz (commercial above 10M).
On 6M (52.525MHz), with the same power and antenna set up as above, you should be able to get the same distances (day or night). I've had this experience on 35MHz-88MHz. On 75M (3.975MHz) I have regularrly worked station from the next street over out to 20-30 miles and even out to 70 miles will little problems running 100 watts and a shortened 75M Inverted V fed at 25ft. Although signals at times have been very weak. I don't have a good answer because each situation is different. One thing to try using a full size Inverted V fed at 25-30ft is to run a 1/2 wavelength piece of wire directly under the Inverted V or dipole. That has been show to give an S unit more signals in a lot of cases. Walt/K5YFW -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of jgorman01 Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 8:16 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [digitalradio] Re: local HF net successes I've experienced some of this problem in the past too. I believe part of the problem is that as you go up in freq, low angle radiation (ground wave) is easier to achieve but the ground absorption increases too. 15 meters seemed to be the best compromise. That is, 10m had good low angle but high absorption, 20m had worse low angle but less aborption, and 15m was right in the middle. NVIS works well when the D-layer absorbes the lower angle radiation, but as you say the D-layer disappears at night and the lower bands "go long" even with NVIS antennas. Added to this is the difficulty of achieving ground wave radiation on 160/80m without extremely large vertical antennas. All in all a hard task to communicate 25 -30 miles in the evening on HF. Either 160 or 2 meters are the best bets. Jim WA0LYK --- In [email protected], "Andrew O'Brien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > By the way, since I moved about 30-40 miles away from my former QTH > > which was centrally located to our club's Wednesday night chat net, we > > have tried many different HF frequencies to see what works the best for > > voice. We initially started on 28.400 for the last year or two but the > > reason for selecting 10 meter phone was so that the Tech + and Novices > > could be part of the group. Guess what? At no time have we ever had any > > of them come to the well publicized net. So recently we have been trying > > other bands, and 80 tends to go long and you get too many distant > > stations wanting to contact us, 40 and 20 are outside the NVIS range and > > have a weaker ground wave. Unfortunately same for 6 meters:( We thought > > that might work OK for direct/skywave, but very mediocre results with > > our mediocre antennas. > > > > The bands that really work the best are: > > > > 160 if the other stations are willing to install an antenna ... and ... > > 15 meters was the best "ground"/direct wave of all the bands we tried. > > Even with Butternut and R7 type verticals. I still can not quite figure > > out the reason. > > > > I sure wish I could get some of the stations to try digital, especially > > on 6 meters and 160 meters, but it seems nearly impossible out of 150 + > > hams in the greater area, we have very few that will even try digital > > modes at all:( > > Rick, I have been having some of the same frustrations. I have tried to > find bands that will work for ham within 20-40 miles of me and have found it > very difficult. Tell us more about your 15M experiments? > > Andy K3UK > Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) Yahoo! Groups Links Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
