Re: Topband: WD8DSB & LU5OM 160 meter year long test complete

[vk2wf]

Hi AllArgentinaian stations are hard to work indeed from VK2. After 12 months 
on Topband I did finally work LU8DPM on 28 July 18.73Adrian VK2WF 


Sent from my SAMSUNG Galaxy S7 on the Telstra Mobile Network
 Original message From: VK3HJ  
Date: 3/8/18  3:20 pm  (GMT+10:00) To: topband  
Subject: Re: Topband: WD8DSB & LU5OM 160 meter year long test complete 
I have heard Manuel a couple of times, just, but VK3 to anywhere east of the 
west coast of South America is difficult.

Thankfully, I do have one QSO confirmed with him from two years ago.

As far as regulars heard, I would have to mention AA1K, N0FW and K4IQJ, 
amongst others. At the very least, I can hear them pretty well every evening 
here.

One particularly notable station worked here many times was HC1PF. Luis was 
a beacon every evening here a few years ago, until he moved back to Italy.

I have six 268 m Beverage antennas, on a quiet rural property, so I do year 
very well.

73,

Luke VK3HJ 

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Re: Topband: WD8DSB & LU5OM 160 meter year long test complete

[VK3HJ]

I have heard Manuel a couple of times, just, but VK3 to anywhere east of the 
west coast of South America is difficult.


Thankfully, I do have one QSO confirmed with him from two years ago.

As far as regulars heard, I would have to mention AA1K, N0FW and K4IQJ, 
amongst others. At the very least, I can hear them pretty well every evening 
here.


One particularly notable station worked here many times was HC1PF. Luis was 
a beacon every evening here a few years ago, until he moved back to Italy.


I have six 268 m Beverage antennas, on a quiet rural property, so I do year 
very well.


73,

Luke VK3HJ 


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Topband: test email please ignore

[lee]

Top-band email test please ignore.

Thank you

Lee   K7TJR  OR

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Topband: test e-mail please ignore

[lee]

Test e-mail from new e-mail address. Please ignore

Lee   K7TJR  OR

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Re: Topband: WB6RSE Flag type loop question

[Steve Lawrence via Topband]

It's much more useful to think of RX loop antennas as having directivity rather 
than "gain." The full size flag has a rather broad pattern of around +/- 60 
degrees so that it can be pointed to improve SNR vs directly towards the 
heading of interest. If a pre-amp increases the signal and noise by the same 
amount, you don't need the pre-amp. My flag is extremely quiet vs my shunt fed 
tower vertical. The F/S and F/B ratios are excellent. The SNR improvement over 
the vertical is dramatic.

73 - Steve WB6RSE




On Aug 1, 2018, at 2:49 PM, Chuck Hutton  wrote:

But that gain is in the vicinity of small pennants, f;ags and others.


I often use smaller loops and flags with a preamp. At 160 and nearby, I believe 
 my preamps (Clifton Labs, ARR etc) have goodenough IM and NF properties to not 
affect results in a negative way.


Having said that, the pattern is pretty lousy. I wouldn't bother with the LOG 
unless I was desperate man in a desperate situation.



Chuck




From: Topband  on behalf of Mike Waters 

Sent: Wednesday, August 1, 2018 1:15 PM
To: Nick Hall-Patch
Cc: topband
Subject: Re: Topband: WB6RSE Flag type loop question

That's a terrible RX antenna. Did you see the losses?!
Minus-forty-something dB on 160.

73, Mike
www.w0btu.com
WØBTU's Radio Communication Technical Articles and File 
...
www.w0btu.com
Amateur radio technical information by Mike Waters, W0BTU




On Wed, Aug 1, 2018, 3:00 PM Nick Hall-Patch  wrote:

> DuckDuckGo brought up this at the top of its search:
> http://kk5jy.net/LoG/
> 
> Presumably that is what you mean?
> 
> best wishes,
> 
> Nick
> VE7DXR
> 
> At 19:04 2018-08-01, CUTTER DAVID via Topband wrote:
>> Drifting the thread slightly: I read an article recently regarding 2
>> loops of 15ft square separated by 15ft which the author called Loop
>> On Ground, LOG.  He claimed good results on receive over a period of
>> a year.  It was very low gain but had directional properties and was
>> said to be quiet.I can't lay my hands on the site just now, but
>> it might be of interest.
>> 
>> David G3UNA
> 
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Re: Topband: WB6RSE Flag type loop question

[Chuck Hutton]

But that gain is in the vicinity of small pennants, f;ags and others.


I often use smaller loops and flags with a preamp. At 160 and nearby, I believe 
 my preamps (Clifton Labs, ARR etc) have goodenough IM and NF properties to not 
affect results in a negative way.


Having said that, the pattern is pretty lousy. I wouldn't bother with the LOG 
unless I was desperate man in a desperate situation.



Chuck




From: Topband  on behalf of Mike Waters 

Sent: Wednesday, August 1, 2018 1:15 PM
To: Nick Hall-Patch
Cc: topband
Subject: Re: Topband: WB6RSE Flag type loop question

That's a terrible RX antenna. Did you see the losses?!
Minus-forty-something dB on 160.

73, Mike
www.w0btu.com
WØBTU's Radio Communication Technical Articles and File 
...
www.w0btu.com
Amateur radio technical information by Mike Waters, W0BTU




On Wed, Aug 1, 2018, 3:00 PM Nick Hall-Patch  wrote:

> DuckDuckGo brought up this at the top of its search:
> http://kk5jy.net/LoG/
>
> Presumably that is what you mean?
>
> best wishes,
>
> Nick
> VE7DXR
>
> At 19:04 2018-08-01, CUTTER DAVID via Topband wrote:
> >Drifting the thread slightly: I read an article recently regarding 2
> >loops of 15ft square separated by 15ft which the author called Loop
> >On Ground, LOG.  He claimed good results on receive over a period of
> >a year.  It was very low gain but had directional properties and was
> >said to be quiet.I can't lay my hands on the site just now, but
> >it might be of interest.
> >
> >David G3UNA
>
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Re: Topband: WD8DSB & LU5OM 160 meter year long test complete

[m.r.c.]

does anyone remember the sked between ZL and W6KIP(??) back in the 60s?  I can not recall any details, 
but I do remember hearing Alex (W6KIP???) every night during my very early years on top band.  That's 
when the band was severely limited in frequencies and power & we got to listen to LORAN.  We were limited 
to a night time power of 200 watts Plate Input.


Robin, WA6CDR


- Original Message - 
From: "Steve" 

To: "topband" 
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2018 11:52
Subject: Re: Topband: WD8DSB & LU5OM 160 meter year long test complete





This reminds me of the QSOs VE7SB (I think I remember that call right) and

VK3ZL did.

Tree..it was Bob, VE7BS in Pemberton. I would often listen during their summer dawn chats using my 
ICF-2010 Sony and built-in ferrite loop. Often the VKs were good copy here on the kitchen table! I 
think condx must have been much different back then.


Steve VE7SL


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Re: Topband: WD8DSB & LU5OM 160 meter year long test complete

[Dan Edward Dba East edwards]

good work, don and manuel !
73, w5xz, dan
 

On Thursday, August 2, 2018 1:57 PM, Steve  wrote:
 

 
>This reminds me of the QSOs VE7SB (I think I remember that call right) and
VK3ZL did.

Tree..it was Bob, VE7BS in Pemberton. I would often listen during their 
summer dawn chats using my ICF-2010 Sony and built-in ferrite loop. Often 
the VKs were good copy here on the kitchen table! I think condx must have 
been much different back then.

Steve VE7SL


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Re: Topband: WD8DSB & LU5OM 160 meter year long test complete

[Steve]

This reminds me of the QSOs VE7SB (I think I remember that call right) and

VK3ZL did.

Tree..it was Bob, VE7BS in Pemberton. I would often listen during their 
summer dawn chats using my ICF-2010 Sony and built-in ferrite loop. Often 
the VKs were good copy here on the kitchen table! I think condx must have 
been much different back then.


Steve VE7SL


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Re: Topband: WD8DSB & LU5OM 160 meter year long test complete

[Wes Stewart]

I often saw your spots, but the hours were just awful for me in AZ.  Too late to 
stay up late, too early to get up early.


I am reminded of some skeds that W7UBI (SK) and I ran on another part of the 
spectrum, 2-meters, on meteor scatter in 1978-1979 For over a year we did a 
half-hour skeds each Saturday and Sunday morning.  Over about a 900 mile path we 
made valid QSOs about 30% of the time on CW.


Still hope to QSO Manuel someday.

Wes  N7WS

On 8/2/2018 10:11 AM, Don Kirk wrote:

For those of you that have been getting up early each morning to listen for
LU5OM, just wanted to let you know that we have reached the end of our year
long test.  Manuel (LU5OM) and I (WD8DSB) are pretty worn out getting up
almost every morning (0845 UTC) for one year.  Manuel will still continue
to be very active on 160 meters as he closes in on his DXCC, but our
official schedule has ceased.

As previously reported, our test turned out to be very interesting in that
I was able to copy Manuel at least 95% of the days that I listened
(including my summer months with lots of lightning crashes), with copy
meaning I could copy his call sign and hear him say he was calling CQ.  Our
path is almost a true North/South path (actually 160 degrees) at a distance
of 4700 miles.  For the majority of our test Manuel used a top loaded
vertical (currently 64 foot tall) and 500 watts. My RX situation is a small
pennant (51.6% of full size) using one W7IUV preamp, an old Kenwood TS-180s
with 500 Hz filter and a 200 Hz hi-per-mite active audio filter.

As I said before, this (95% success rate) is something I would have never
thought possible when we started our year long test.

Just FYI and 73,
Don wd8dsb (and Manuel LU5OM)
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Re: Topband: WD8DSB & LU5OM 160 meter year long test complete

[Tree]

Congrats on the 95 percent success rate.

This reminds me of the QSOs VE7SB (I think I remember that call right) and
VK3ZL did.  They managed to make QSOs like everyday for over a year I
believe.  Someone else on the list might remember the details better than I
can.

Tree N6TR

On Thu, Aug 2, 2018 at 10:11 AM, Don Kirk  wrote:

> For those of you that have been getting up early each morning to listen for
> LU5OM, just wanted to let you know that we have reached the end of our year
> long test.  Manuel (LU5OM) and I (WD8DSB) are pretty worn out getting up
> almost every morning (0845 UTC) for one year.  Manuel will still continue
> to be very active on 160 meters as he closes in on his DXCC, but our
> official schedule has ceased.
>
> As previously reported, our test turned out to be very interesting in that
> I was able to copy Manuel at least 95% of the days that I listened
> (including my summer months with lots of lightning crashes), with copy
> meaning I could copy his call sign and hear him say he was calling CQ.  Our
> path is almost a true North/South path (actually 160 degrees) at a distance
> of 4700 miles.  For the majority of our test Manuel used a top loaded
> vertical (currently 64 foot tall) and 500 watts. My RX situation is a small
> pennant (51.6% of full size) using one W7IUV preamp, an old Kenwood TS-180s
> with 500 Hz filter and a 200 Hz hi-per-mite active audio filter.
>
> As I said before, this (95% success rate) is something I would have never
> thought possible when we started our year long test.
>
> Just FYI and 73,
> Don wd8dsb (and Manuel LU5OM)
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Topband: WD8DSB & LU5OM 160 meter year long test complete

[Don Kirk]

For those of you that have been getting up early each morning to listen for
LU5OM, just wanted to let you know that we have reached the end of our year
long test.  Manuel (LU5OM) and I (WD8DSB) are pretty worn out getting up
almost every morning (0845 UTC) for one year.  Manuel will still continue
to be very active on 160 meters as he closes in on his DXCC, but our
official schedule has ceased.

As previously reported, our test turned out to be very interesting in that
I was able to copy Manuel at least 95% of the days that I listened
(including my summer months with lots of lightning crashes), with copy
meaning I could copy his call sign and hear him say he was calling CQ.  Our
path is almost a true North/South path (actually 160 degrees) at a distance
of 4700 miles.  For the majority of our test Manuel used a top loaded
vertical (currently 64 foot tall) and 500 watts. My RX situation is a small
pennant (51.6% of full size) using one W7IUV preamp, an old Kenwood TS-180s
with 500 Hz filter and a 200 Hz hi-per-mite active audio filter.

As I said before, this (95% success rate) is something I would have never
thought possible when we started our year long test.

Just FYI and 73,
Don wd8dsb (and Manuel LU5OM)
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Topband: Circle array small diameter VS Wider spaced 4 sq rcv arrays

[W0MU Mike Fatchett]

I currently have installed a 8 circle array by DXE.  It works fine.  It 
is built for 40/80/160 with the 50 ft radius as that is about all the 
space I have.  I find a rarely if ever need it on 40m so I was curious 
if a wider spaced 4 sq for rcv would out perform the circle enough to 
really notice on 80/160.  The circle allow me 4 more directions which 
has come in handy.  I would prefer an antenna that could be shared 
between 160 and 80.


Mike W0MU


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Re: Topband: Shunt Fed Tower Question

[Chuck Dietz]

I would not use any inductance unless the tower naturally resonates above
1800 kHz. If I were going to use a cage for the gamma connection, I would
make a small cage that would only be on one side of the tower. I find that
the shield of old coax spaced a couple of feet from the tower works fine. I
would start with a variable capacitor in series with the coax center
conductor feed to the gamma connection to the tower. Find the best dip,
replace it with the closest fixed cap and use the variable cap from the
gamma connection to ground to find the value that resonates it perfectly.
(The dips will be sharp.)

Good luck Herb!

Chuck, W5PR

On Thu, Aug 2, 2018 at 8:04 AM Herbert Schoenbohm <
herbert.schoenb...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I recently installed a 2 element 40-meter beam and a 4 element 20-meter
> beam on top of a 90-foot tower which I use for TX on Topband.  The tower is
> cage fed with a 3-wire cage spaced24 inches around the tower,  I am able to
> get 1.2 to 1 on 1845 by putting about 1200 pf and a 500 pf fixed HV cap to
> ground.  The coax feed goes to the wires with about 40 mh in series.  My
> taps to the tower are at 60' which may be too high up on the tower
> considering all the toploading I have now.  My question is:  How far down
> should I move the tower taps to make the feed appear inductive rather than
> the capacitive value currently what I believe I have?
>
> Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ
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Topband: LoG receiving antenna

[K4SAV]

I built a LoG antenna last year and evaluated it.  Most of the claims 
for the performance of this antenna are in error.  I posted the summary 
of performance here:

http://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/easy-as-falling-off-a-log.617550/

I will copy that message below, so you don't have to go to the link and 
find it:


I built a 15 ft on a side LoG back in April when there were signals on 
160 for measurement purposes. The results were as expected. Here is the 
summary.


1. Measured gain: 160 = -44 dBi, 80 = -35 dBi, 40 = -19 dBi (by 
comparison to a reference antenna of known gain)

Those numbers agree closely with EZNEC values.

2. Without a preamp on 80 cannot copy any signals that are less than S9. 
On 160 cannot copy any signals that are less than S9+20. On 40 cannot 
copy any signals that are less than S7. (S meter is on TS-990S. Your S 
meter may be calibrated differently.) I have a preamp to make up the 
gain difference, but since there are claims that a preamp is usually not 
needed, I did that test.


3. No directivity was measured. All directions approximately the same 
gain. This is in agreement with EZNEC. Measurements of low angle signals 
on 160 was difficult because most of those signals were below the noise 
floor of the LoG. Was able to copy some big gun EU stations on 80.


4. S/N performance was very poor. 80 was the worst band and 160 was the 
best. On 80 my 80 meter inverted L (transmit antenna) beats it by 0 to 
10 dB S/N. A BOG beats it by about 6 to 10 dB S/N. On 160 my 160 
inverted L beats it by about 3 dB. A BOG is about 12 dB better than the 
LoG on 160. The LoG S/N is significantly worse than my transmit antennas 
and much worse than a BOG.


5. Was unable to measure any effect of common mode feedline currents. 
Same pattern and gain with or without feedline choke and feedline grounding.


6. LOG shows good response to very high angle signals. Unfortunately 
that's not what you need it to do. It would work well for very close 
stations but close stations are usually so strong that you don't need a 
receiving antenna.


7. All testing was done when there were no thunderstorms close. Since 
the antenna has very good response to high angle signals, the S/N should 
be much worse (compared to other options) if storms are close.


All of this data is in agreement with known information about how 
receiving antennas work. That's the reason the results were as expected. 
When the noise source is atmospheric noise, you can't improve the S/N by 
using an omnidirectional antenna. S/N is improved by having an antenna 
with maximum gain in the direction of the station and minimum gain in 
all other directions. That's the way all commonly used receiving 
antennas work. If you have a single man-made noise source, an antenna 
that nulls that direction may improve S/N, but generally won't have much 
affect on atmospheric noise.


Jerry, K4SAV
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Topband: Shunt Fed Tower Question

[Herbert Schoenbohm]

I recently installed a 2 element 40-meter beam and a 4 element 20-meter
beam on top of a 90-foot tower which I use for TX on Topband.  The tower is
cage fed with a 3-wire cage spaced24 inches around the tower,  I am able to
get 1.2 to 1 on 1845 by putting about 1200 pf and a 500 pf fixed HV cap to
ground.  The coax feed goes to the wires with about 40 mh in series.  My
taps to the tower are at 60' which may be too high up on the tower
considering all the toploading I have now.  My question is:  How far down
should I move the tower taps to make the feed appear inductive rather than
the capacitive value currently what I believe I have?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ
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Re: Topband: WB6RSE Flag type loop question

[David Cutter via Topband]

tnx I'll look at that

David G3UNA

 

From: Carl Luetzelschwab [mailto:carlluetzelsch...@gmail.com] 
Sent: 02 August 2018 12:29
To: David Cutter
Cc: Joe Subich, W4TV; topBand List
Subject: Re: Topband: WB6RSE Flag type loop question

 

David,

 

The NEC-4.2 engine appears to give very good results with buried and 
close-to-ground wires (the NEC-4.1 engine compares favorably, too). It is 
instructive to read N6LF's July/August 2016 QEX article on his modeling efforts 
with buried and close-to-ground wires.

 

You can get Rudy's article at 
http://rudys.typepad.com/files/qexjul-aug-2016-bog.pdf.

 

Carl K9LA

 

 

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Re: Topband: WB6RSE Flag type loop question

[Carl Luetzelschwab]

David,

The NEC-4.2 engine appears to give very good results with buried and
close-to-ground wires (the NEC-4.1 engine compares favorably, too). It is
instructive to read N6LF's July/August 2016 QEX article on his modeling
efforts with buried and close-to-ground wires.

You can get Rudy's article at
http://rudys.typepad.com/files/qexjul-aug-2016-bog.pdf.

Carl K9LA
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Re: Topband: WB6RSE Flag type loop question

[David Cutter via Topband]

I am at a loss to know how to model it with any confidence, for wires close
to or  on the ground.
David G3UNA

-Original Message-
From: Topband [mailto:topband-boun...@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Carl
Luetzelschwab
Sent: 01 August 2018 23:02
To: Joe Subich, W4TV; topBand List
Subject: Re: Topband: WB6RSE Flag type loop question

Joe,

> However, the Waller Flag is a dual loop that trades off signal for 
> pattern.

I agree. But I believe it's gain is very low mostly because it's made up of
electrically very small loops.

A very small loop has its main lobes in the plane of the loop - not
perpendicular to the plane of the loop as in a quarter-wave-on-a-side loop
in a Quad antenna. When a very small loop is mounted horizontally, there's a
null in the pattern towards the ground. So even though it's mounted
horizontally, it is less susceptible to the effects of the ground.

> The LOG is a horizontally polarized antenna nearly on the "boundary"
> where the horizontally polarized signal goes to zero.  The better the 
> ground (higher conductivity), the worse (lower) the signal level from 
> the LOG  (thank you Dr. Maxwell).

I also agree with Dr. Maxwell. But a very small loop mounted horizontally is
not like a big antenna mounted horizontally.

And Nick is correct - KK5JY shows a two-loop system farther on down - it's
kind of approaching a horizontal Waller Flag.

Carl K9LA
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