Here's my (trivial) contribution. I'm mostly an LF NDB DXer and love to
hear any Pacific beacons. I had room for a DKAZ and hadn't heard about
the superiorities of longer horizontal length so put up the standard
140' DKAZ. Due to critters around, primarily javelina who will tear down
anything in their path, my bottom horizontal wire lies on the ground.
The ground in this S. AZ desert is mostly a thin layer of soil with rock
underneath. My DKAZ points west and I use a Wellbrook FLG100LN preamp. I
use a fixed 1200 ohm termination resistor and have not spent any time
trying to optimize it. Experiments indicated the Wellbrook preamp was
noticeably quieter for noise pickup than a matching transformer at the
DKAZ and a preamp in the shack. I run about 550 feet of RG6 coax from
DKAZ to shack--trying to get the DKAZ as much out of the fairly high
local AC noise environment as possible. I also have a 900' E/W longwire
which gives somewhat stronger LF Pacifics than the DKAZ however the east
pickup deteriorates the S/N ratio such that the DKAZ even though
somewhat lower level is almost always noticeably better S/N ratio on LF
signals and is almost always clearly superior to the E/W longwire for
Pacifics. I have not so far found a western LF signal that the E/W wire
heard that couldn't also be heard on the DKAZ. Folks may have found the
DKAZ is lower output the lower you go in frequency, but for my uses it
is definitely not suffering from lack of LF performance, again when used
with the FLG100LN preamp. I also try occasionally (if I'm determined to
get up early enough) for MW Pacific signals, and the DKAZ is even better
than the E/W longwire all over the whole MW band. At the top of the
band, 1566 HLAZ is always better on the DKAZ, for instance. On times
when DU expanded-band signals are heard, the DKAZ hears them when the
longwire usually has no trace of them.
Especially for a permanent installation, it's a major job to erect a
DKAZ; perhaps some day I'll see about possibly extending it to 160'
horizontal or maybe longer if there's room. A lot of extra brush would
need clearing, etc. A major job! But the current basic 140' DKAZ is
working superbly for me for both western LF and MW reception.
73,
Steve AA7U
near Sahuarita, AZ
On 10/24/2018 10:42 AM, Chuck Hutton wrote:
Mark -
No arrogance detected here.
Now back to the issue of DKAZ low band performance...…
Chuck
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