Shouldn't this topic be dealt with at a generic level rather than CQ WW 160?
The remote receiver is as valuable on 80 or 40 as it is on 160 in a contest.
I agree wholeheartedly with the feeling that the use of a remote receiver
should not be allowed in ANY contest in the unassisted category, let
I agree with John's (KK9A) commentary but not necessarily that it needs a
new category. Just add it to the assisted category. Leave the unassisted
category as is. Assisted is an evolving slippery slope anyway and more of
these things will emerge - no doubt. Assisted is really technology and
The best write up and data I have seen on this subject was the team
vertical report on test done in Jamaica back about 10 or more years ago.
As I recall, the vertical signal strength to low angle DX went up
dramatically within 2 or less wavelengths of the edge of the high water
mark and maybe
Same here. My T vertical for 160 is 100 ft vertical and 82 ft horizontal.
That makes the antenna resonant below the band, with a feedpoint Z of 50
ohms plus some inductive reactance on 160M. I add series C to tune out the
L. The same idea will certainly work on 80M.
I believe that this
Are you actually talking about "switched 2 direction beverages" or 2
bi-directional beverages.
A bi-directional beverage receives in 2 directions at the same time on a
single wire. It is un-terminated. I have 2 of these in my beverage farm:
one E/W and one N/S.
A switched single
Bob,
I am not sure if you are aware that KP4KE allegations and confirmed actions
are legendary. People have operated from his station and never had the same
result (can't imagine why). Also, KP4KE was legendary for self spotting.
He asked me to spot him one year in the ARRL DX contest and I
Bill, Given the info that you have provided, it sounds like you dont have
lots of room for almost anything if the room needed is radial field in
certain directions from the tower. And re guying the tower is out as well.
My suggestion for a simple job, is to have someone climb the tower and
Guys, the point of the original posts, if you actually read it, was from
someone who is balancing their limitations vs an antenna choice. If a
significant portion of the radial field desired is un obtainable, then
vertical antennas are not the defacto choice necessarily.
As someone with 2
The 5NN discussion brought up an interesting subject to me. Signal
strengths reported on 75M SSB are funny to listen too as people seem to be
in a "mines bigger than yours" competition on how many dB above S9 a signal
is. Meanwhile their noise floor is probably S7 or more - what's the point?
When did this become the QRP reflector?
There has to be some better place for this expanding and off topic dialog
than here.
73
Ed N1UR
_
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
I agree with others on the IPO on 160 - 40 which defeats the "Tuned" preamp.
I personally don't default to attenuation of any value. It depends on the
noise level and the bandwidth. On CW (which is the most common on 160) and
a fairly narrow bandwidth, I often use no attenuation whatsoever
I guess that this question was pretty useless for this group. Sorry for
asking.
73
Ed N1UR
_
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
I am sure that this is someone remoting. Nothing wrong with it, in my
opinion. They can legally use their own call assuming they are licensed to
be where they are, which isn't hard on 160M. And its no different than
someone operating from their second home which many ops do. Its just way
more
A very interesting interpretation of the FCC regs by a former FCC official.
Whether a liability lawyer would agree with him is debatable in my opinion.
Just like a bartender can be liable for serving drinks to an obviously drunk
person who then goes off and kills someone in a driving accident, so
In the case discussed of a station remoting in and not properly identifying
(ie an Italian station remoting a USA station but continuing to use the
Italian callsign), it seems to me that the FCC would consider the station
owner the control operator and therefore responsible for the proper IDing of
. RHR has lawyers on retainer and I'm sure
this has been legally looked at. I can get the ruling they go by.
Sent from AOL Mobile Mail
-Original Message-
From: Ed Sawyer <sawye...@earthlink.net>
To: 'Louis Parascondola' <gudguy...@aol.com>; topband <topband@contesting
...@earthlink.net; topband@contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: strange propagation
It is the same thing as if he was here physically, he must use his call with a
/ w2 or whatever.
Sent from AOL Mobile Mail
-Original Message-
From: Ed Sawyer <sawye...@earthlink.net>
To: topband &l
is in the station records.
(c) The station licensee must make the station and the station records
available for inspection upon request by an FCC representative.
N1UR
From: Ed Sawyer [mailto:sawye...@earthlink.net]
Sent: Friday, January 15, 2016 4:05 AM
To: 'Louis Parascondola'; 'topband
K1DG stated:
"A couple of years ago I did a quick analysis and discovered he was right!
The control case was N1UR, who operated the CQWW contest many years in the
low power category, then turned on an amplifier and raised his score about
75%, or about 6% per dB! Same op, same QTH, same
Personally, I did not observe commentary deserving of someone leaving a
reflector that they have enjoyed for 20 years. I do believe that Tom got
tweaked by hearing opinions on RHR which questioned whether its ethically
used or potentially had liability for use of his station and didn't like it.
I have been successfully using the MFJ-998RT successfully on a 2 el 80M
phased wire array. The 2 el wire beam has great performance but is very
narrow banded (about 100khz) so I decided to try this tuner mounted on the
tower at the feed point of the connection to the 2 phasing cables. It works
It is common practice in the CQ WW 160M Contest for CQing on the NA and EU
side to occur in the 1810 - 1825 range. I was doing so twice in the contest
last weekend. It was pretty much every 3khz CQing in the range both Friday
and Saturday nights including NA and EU CQing stations. For the last
Are we talking half slopers or quarter wave slopers here. I have a 70 ft
tower and had very poor performance with quarter wave slopers on either band
(80/160). On 80 I tried a resonant roughly 65 ft wire with the shield
bonded to the tower at the top. For 160 added a loading coil near the
I can't speak to verticals spaced that tightly but I can speak to dipoles
spaced that tightly. I have 2 phased half wave dipoles spaced 1/8 apart and
fed 180 degs out of phase. I get nice gain (looks like a solid S unit or
~5db as expected from on the air tests). But the bandwidth has to be
Personally, I don't agree that the occasional wisdom obtained from Jim's
posts is worth being subjected to the unprofessional attitude and comments
that all of us are subjected to on the many forums that he appears.
Ed N1UR
_
Topband Reflector Archives -
I can't speak to JT65 as I have never used it. But on CW, I used 100 - 200W
only for 10 years. T top vertical with 40 radials under and really crappy
soil. Beverages in many directions. I was able to work 140 Countries and
30 zones.
I now have a 1.5kW amp and phased verticals and am
Central Vermont (my QTH) has just about the worst conductivity soil in the
US. Glacial till on top of Granite. One of the USs largest and oldest
Granite mines is only 5 miles from my QTH and is visible across the valley
when I am on the tower. Having lived in W5 (Houston area), I know how
I worked G4IIY at about 03Z on Sunday morning. Ian was one of the most
consistent signals CQing and heard from my end (nice job Ian). However - no
one from EU was strong. A few of the Carib and Zone 33 stations were strong
some of the time but even then not frequently.
I worked EI9E around
I'm sorry but I don't buy the argument that the way to be a "gentleman" is
to accept everyone else's interests above your own. A "gentleman" is
respectful of others and treats others as he/she wants to be treated.
No one owns a frequency channel at least in the US - read your license.
If
I have found that a common source of noise on beverage systems is the need
to use the small F type connectors and the crappy F type coax that is often
on the jumpers as well as just converting it all to the final input to your
receiver.
Try the simplest but clean and checked coax directly from
The more I hear and learn about FT8, the more amazingly bad this mode
sounds.
There is a simple way to solve the 1840 problem. Just "update the app" to
default to 1980 and the whole 2.5khz crowd will move up there. Amazingly,
most won't even know they moved, they will just wonder why their
kes so little effort to be considerate of others...but then the world
seems to be getting less hospitable all the time. Unfortunate. 73,
Greg-N4CC
-Original Message-
From: Topband [mailto:topband-boun...@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Ed Sawyer
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2017 9:48 AM
To: to
Bob, Thanks for your Topband efforts from HS. Still a needed zone for me
(and I am sure many) on topband. In fact one of just a couple I still need
on 80M.
The path to Vermont is a tough one. I only heard you once, sometime over
the holiday time, despite many times looking for you once
Paul, You should check the rules on that WiFi linked beverage. In CQ WW for
instance, its not allowed. All RX and TX antennas have to be connected by
wires. Some contests - like CQ 160 - allow your set up within the rules.
73
Ed N1UR
_
Topband Reflector Archives -
I think the first question is - whats you steady noise level with your TX
antenna? Maybe S5 is a 30db improvement. If not, in my experience - steady
state noise is either a local point source close to the antenna (is there
anything along the path or within a few hundred feet of the end? Houses,
I worked VU2GSM on 80M a couple of weeks ago. He was 559 and very copyable
on my N/S 800 ft beverage. Yes, he did come right back to me. But I
didn't think much of it.
Ed N1UR
_
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
The FT8 QSOs may be "proper" for a computer. Just not for a human.
73
Ed N1UR
_
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
I have not heard of long distance solar array QRM on the HF bands. I have a
few moderate sized ones with a mile or 2 from me and I hear nothing from
them (very low noise QTH). Very close in (less than 1 - 2000ft) might be a
very different story.
I would be interested to hear of other
I am not sure why people responded privately on this topic. But here is my
reply:
All methods can be used. The "hard phase reversal" with equal lengths of
coax works (in my experience) however it makes the DC component "shorted"
and can mess up switching options. The properly cut 180 deg
I find that my 600 to 1000 ft terminated beverages are quite capable.
Clearly, if someone doesn't the room, then other options need to be
explored. But the front to back ratio and SNR of my 1000 ft beverage to
Europe is nothing short of amazing when it comes to hearing. Even with
1.5kW on 80 and
Jeff, great write-up. Thank you. I never heard 9M0W on either 80 or 160 on
any of the days and listened many of the SS and SR both long and short path.
Using beverages and the YX array since noise wasn't bad here over that time.
Worked 9M0W on 40M for a new band. Never heard on 30 - 10 either.
Roger. My guess is that it is considered "season over" by most of the boys.
I rarely get on 160M after early April unless there is a specific DXpedition
on. I don't think I am alone.
In some cases, people even lose antenna options for the summer due to
coexisting with farmers and other
My thoughts on FT8:
- How is it actually a Q from our normal perspective? The comments
Jeff made on the fact that 2 operators (on both sides of the circuit) could
see evidence of each other for 20 minutes before the "computers" finally
made the connection - is proof that the operator
As I said in the post - "in my opinion". You are most free to disagree with
it. Other people's opinions should never be disturbing when no personal
attack is made. And none was.
Regardless of the above. Very sorry if my opinion offended anyone.
73
Ed N1UR
_
Thanks for that link. I think that this will be a recurring theme going
forward. 160M is hard. That what makes it fun for many of us. Is it still
fun if FT8 is used? Is it more fun to use FT8 than wait for "the next one"
and hope it comes? I think we are all making these decisions. How does
KA1J stated
"this is a licensed sport, I see it in some ways like fishing which is also
a licensed sport; some catch and keep, some catch and release, some pay big
bucks to fly to way out of the way places that most can't afford to do, to
get the big fish, some fish the docks. Some like to go
Personally, I think that there will be no vertically polarized solution to 3
crank up towers so close to each other. Its actually hard to imagine any of
the bands not having a problem based on what is described.
If it were me, I would go with an inverted V at 106 ft and make sure the
legs are
Folks, for me, the real issue is the lack of people coming on CW on 160M for
DXpeditions. Lets be honest, many people don't like the struggle of Qs on
160 like we do. And many are not great at CW. By using FT8 on 160, they
can "satisfy" topbanders while they operate on another band at the same
Actually, I think this topic is very relevant to the "fringe bands" like
160M and 6M.
The way I read the purposely non-detailed direction from the board
"contemporaneous direct initiation by the operator on
both sides of the contact.". With the known software in mind, that would
look to
Interesting discussion on shooting antenna wires in trees.
I have used a bow and arrow for 25 years. Cheap practice bow (good for
trees up to 100ft) and practice arrows with an open tip. I fill the tip
with a few nuts (ie nuts and bolts nuts) and tape the end shut which gives
just a bit of
Actually Gary, if you added the weight to the front of the arrow as I
describe, it drops right through all the branches no problem, but has
accuracy. Trust me, I know. I have missed a shot or 2, cleared many trees,
and it still drops right to the ground. Without the weight, I used to lose
Isn't BOG still a beverage just with more ground coupling loss because its
literally "on the ground"? So the typical answer on beverages seems to be
that 4 - 10 ft above the ground is low enough to eliminate the undesired
noise but high enough to reduce the losses from being too low to the
I reached the same pivot point that Jeff did this year but choose the other
path. I have left DXing from a band perspective. FT8 is not enjoyable to
me and doing something not enjoyable to build totals is not a good use of
time for me. I am looking for 9BWAZ and ATNO counters on modes now only.
I use beverage "almost" all the time for receive on 160M. However, there
are times, clearly a minority, when listening on my phased array of 2
verticals is better. When conditions are super quiet in the winter and
signals are weak from a very distant station. Don't rule out your Transmit
As JFK said "not because its easy but because its hard". Making it easy by
"decoding inaudible signals" should give no true 160M fan pleasure. The
whole point of learning the prop and building the transmit and receive
arrays and placing stations near the coast etc etc etc is BECAUSE its hard.
A
I can't speak to switchable bi-directional arrays but I can speak to my
900ft terminated beverage (450 Ohm resistor to a ground rod with 2 - 1 / 4
wave radials per band). It has 20db plus front to back ratio on 40 - 160M.
The gain is sometime not much more than half an S unit to one S unit vs my
Roger. Thank you for promoting this.
With this week being US Thanksgiving holiday, you may see less activity on
tonight. A LOT of us are off work and doing family things.
Thanks for the Q last weekend.
73
Ed N1UR
_
Searchable Archives:
Yes it is. And all on CW. I am sorry I was not able to be on this morning.
73
Ed N1UR
_
Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
al Message-----
From: Ed Sawyer
To: topband
Sent: Wed, Sep 25, 2019 1:13 pm
Subject: Re: Topband: 160 is alive!
Yes it is. And all on CW. I am sorry I was not able to be on this morning.
73
Ed N1UR
_
Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topba
I have to differ somewhat with the comment that Topband Reflector should not
be used to discuss suspect cheating on 160M. Where else can someone's
concern that "that just doesn't sound/look/smell right" come to? Its
possible that others observed the same thing on the band and maybe it
actually
Mike, I am not sure where you find your information, but ALL of the
radiation of a T top vertical is vertically polarized assuming the T section
is balanced. The whole point of the T is that the horizontal portions of
the radiation cancel themselves out because they are 180 degs out of phase.
systems. You
might look to read it.
73
Ed N1UR
From: Mike Waters [mailto:mikew...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 29, 2020 2:47 PM
To: Ed Sawyer
Cc: Guy Olinger K2AV; topband
Subject: Re: Topband: T Top Verticals and yagis
Ed,
Shame on you for attacking Guy. He knows much more
.
73
Ed N1UR
From: Mike Waters [mailto:mikew...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 29, 2020 3:10 PM
To: Ed Sawyer
Cc: Guy Olinger K2AV; topband
Subject: Re: Topband: T Top Verticals and yagis
Hi Ed,
I can appreciate your line of thinking. However, I am 99% certain that he
there was a Folded Counterpoise Society before. Thanks for
sharing.
Ed N1UR
From: Guy Olinger K2AV [mailto:k2av@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 29, 2020 12:56 PM
To: Ed Sawyer
Cc: TopBand List
Subject: Re: Topband: T Top Verticals and yagis
Have to disagree on the no-use
: Monday, March 2, 2020 8:17 AM
To: Richard (Rick) Karlquist
Cc: Don Kirk; Mike Waters; Ed Sawyer; topband
Subject: Re: Topband: T Top Verticals and yagis
Interesting topic
Rick
To your comment regarding close in signals on 160, have some thoughts here:
Agree on the 40 and 80 stuff
Frank had brought up the interaction of certain T top loading wires and the
possible interaction with yagis. I played around with modelling on this and
found that just as Frank said, there is interaction of T top wires and
yagis. One thing I found was that if the wire is in the front pattern of
"The discussion has involved horizontally polarized Yagis. Perhaps use a
vertical 8 circle array on 40m! LOL And keep your T-Top! " Bob, W7RH
Bob, Someone else will have to do that effort. I only model things that are
relevant to my station. I have no problem sharing the results
AA0RS was a real alligator out this way. Myself and others calling and not
able to hear. He eventually called me after I kicked on the amp for the
last 90 mins of my participation.
Ed N1UR
_
Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
There has been a number of varying comments about last weekend's contest. I
thought some might be interested in my observations.
I entered the contest using 100 W Low Power driving a 2 el phased T top
vertical array with 45 radials below each element. The station is located
in Vermont, about
a T-vertical and you'll have no problem
at all, and -- from practical on the air performance -- an inverted-L is
imperceptibly worse than a T-vertical.
I no longer have any T-verticals...
73
Frank
W3LPL
_
From: "Ed Sawyer"
To: topband@contesting.com
Sent: Wednesday
, 2020 3:04 PM
To: Ed Sawyer; donov...@starpower.net; topband@contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: T-loaded vertical
On 2/19/2020 11:50 AM, Ed Sawyer wrote:
> I have personally found that for Ts that are only 70 ft vertical, like mine,
> the ground losses of the long to
The answer to the top loading is that the top is essentially the same as if
it was an L on the antenna - just with the connection point moved to the
center. I would add maybe 5 ft on either side of the top to that equation
and see what it looks like when you install. And, like other verticals.
-Original Message-
From: Cecil [mailto:chac...@cableone.net]
Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2020 8:32 PM
To: Ed Sawyer
Cc: Topband@contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: CQ WW 160 CW - SK..
Still taking pokes at the FT8 ops.
What would constitute an exceptional achievement on FT8?
That’s
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