Rus,
You guys at LBI appear to have had a heck of a good time and gotten
some fine DX, despite it being toward the end of the traditional Fall
Season. Your question appears to have been how short is too short for
a BOG. I have to observe, what difference is there between a BEV, a
BOG and a BUG??? Geez, I really don't know in the context of a sandy
beach. Its likely determined by how high the water table is right
now.... how high has it been recently (as in damp sand) as well as
the character and number of intervening bushes, tall grass and small
trees that might raise parts of a BOG into the BEV class. I guess
that I'm asking partly out of frustration of having carefully put
BEVs up on 3' poles on top of a lawn on top of damp or dry sand for
about a decade. Finally, one day, I ran one on the ground about 100
feet away from the one on the poles. At Grayland, that day, there
was no noticeable difference. I finally quit using poles.... I'm not
sure that some of the others ever did use poles.
As far as "how long?" If Kaz is feeling good enough to sit at the
computer, he may have differing views, but I'd say that longer is
better and straight at the DX is better, until at least 1500 feet.
That being said, I've used a 600 foot measured and barely grounded
(heck, consider it ungrounded) BOG, right on a mowed lawn, pointing
generally at central or Western Australia to DX Downunder for close
to 20 years... well, on the ground for the last ten. I've well over
100 DUs QSLed as well as Tuvalu (on a longer BOG) Vanuatu, Tonga, and
several other exotic island nations. Would I have heard more DUs or
heard them better on a BOG pointed right at eastern Australia and
1500 feet long. Almost certainly. Unfortunately, High Tide and
property ownership hits the Grayland at about the 600 to 700 foot
mark, so......
I don't know what else to say,
John Bryant
Orcas Island, WA, USA
Winradio G313e and various Ultralights
Wellbrook Phased Array + Superloops
At 04:02 AM 11/10/2009 -0800, you wrote:
--- On Mon, 11/9/09, John H. Bryant <bjohnor...@rockisland.com> wrote:
>
>
> So, what is the best antenna for seaside locations? If you
> can solve the liability and ownership problems that abound
> along most coasts, a well-grounded 1400 or 1500 foot long
> Beverage is likely the antenna of choice. If your antenna
> possibilities are any less than that, at all, then the less
> than 200' long Wellbrook Super Array is likely VERY close to
> that long Beverage and clearly a major improvement over the
> ALA-100 Array.
>
>
This is a question we wrestled with at LBI again this year. We had
the following:
a - terminated 1000' BOG aimed roughly 35-40 degrees
b - terminated 800' BOG aimed 230-235 degrees
c - a 6' preamplified broadband loop
d - a 16 x 24 ( not sure on dimensions here ) pre-amplified corner
fed superloop
e - Wellbrook 1530 single turn loop
We determined that on any given night one antenna might prove to be
the star depending on conditions, but that within that, some
receptions simply did better with one antenna vs another. This may
be as discussed elsewhere in the prior post due to the nature of
what signal was available on the other end. It may also depend on
what signals are coming in off the sides.
Our conclusion was that despite the physical effort involved in
totally burying a BOG in the sand ( needed to keep if from being
tripped over or removed on a public beach ) we'll employ at least
one BOG going forward.
That begs another question also raised in this thread - the optimum
length for a BOG, or more precisely, where is the length beyond
which adding more isn't productive. We had determined years earlier
that in our case a 1000' antenna was just as good reception-wise as
a 1500'. We'll be forced to reduce our South BOG to just under 700'
if we use it again as the past 3 years SUV traffic through an entry
to the beach has broken it off there. My sense is that if we reduced
from 1000' to 700' on the North BOG we'd probably not lose much either...
Russ Edmunds
Blue Bell, PA ( 360' ASL )
[15 mi NNW of Philadelphia]
40:08:45N; 75:16:04W, Grid FN20id
<wb2...@yahoo.com>
FM: Yamaha T-80 & Onkyo T-450RDS w/ APS9B @15'
AM: Modified Sony ICF 2010 barefoot
_______________________________________________
IRCA mailing list
IRCA@hard-core-dx.com
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: irca@hard-core-dx.com
_______________________________________________
IRCA mailing list
IRCA@hard-core-dx.com
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: irca@hard-core-dx.com
