I've been using shortish // BOG's near the western edge of my land here in Barrington IL for a few weeks now. They aim about 355 degrees and the idea is to null the many pests to the E and W of me. These were unterminated and about 290 ft // 160 ft. I used phasing to knock down the many backend pests..ie Chicago stations, Indy, and further south etc. With this spacing differential, I can get good nulls on back end stuff for the upper half of the band without reducing the intended DX from northerly directions. However, DX from the intended direction is also reduced somewhat when I phase null a back end pest ..ie something like WSCR 670 since I suspect there's not enough phase difference between the front and back ends with only 130 ft difference in lengths. That's fine, since I want this antenna system to work well on the upper band, where I don't have an IBOCy disaster and where the BOG's have more narrow beamwidths, and where there's some number of northern MN,northern WI, and northern MI (UP) stations I still need.
So...Fri evening I tried terminating the end of the longer BOG, now about 295 ft to ground thru a 270 ohm resistor. I had made measurements of back and front end signals without the ground termination, but since it was past dusk, I had to use mostly locals and there's nothing steady here at night above 1160. Back end low band signals were reduced, but intended direction signals like WTMJ 620, WCPT 850 were also reduced so I feared this wasn't giving me the intended effect. But, this is not all bad, since I no longer had to worry about some mixing products and harmonics from my brutal superlocals off the back end (WGN/WBBM and even WSCR) As I tuned higher, I was pleasantly surprised to notice considerably less back end signals but fine DX from the intended northerly direction. WMBD 1470 from Peoria has a brutal skip signal at night, and it was knocked down lots. Over to 1490 and I found WTIQ's HSFB somewhat under KQDS's nice oldies, and then KXRA came up with an ID during an HSFB break or pregame. Over to 1450 and WMIQ IDed with Iron Mountain HSFB. WSOO 1230 was atop with Redwings hockey. All this with no real need to use the phase wire above 1230 as back stuff was nicely reduced. Over to 1290 and CFRW's oldies were nice and clean with almost no QRM and entertainment level at times. The fun happened on 1340 as I heard the Blue Devils getting ready to play the Golden Bears. Some checking on maxpreps.com (super site) indicated that this had to be KRBT Eleveth MN for a new one, and when I went back outside they were in there with a gal giving some locals ads including one for an appliance store in Eleveth. At 426 miles, this just breaks the US distance record for logging them. Rambling on , I just found my second groundrod that is along the center west end of my land and will now see how well the shorter BOG works with termination. It will be about 150 ft and if quite useful, can be used by quite a few guys here, as lots more have access to 150 ft than 300 ft. 73 KAZ Barrington IL _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org To Post a message: [email protected]
