Just a little more info regarding the 160 meter experiment that I mentioned which is now 11 months old, and quickly approaching 1 year. The station in South America that I'm experimenting with is my good friend LU5OM, and his TX antenna is currently a 64 foot tall top loaded vertical mounted very close to his tower that now supports a HEX beam.
Just FYI, Don (wd8dsb) On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 8:30 AM, Don Kirk <wd8...@gmail.com> wrote: > Guy (K2AV) said "Methinks hamdom underestimates 160 propagation in the > summertime.", and I totally agree with him. > > For the past 11 months I have been running a daily early morning > experiment on 160 meters CW trying to copy a specific station in South > America running 500 watts (4700 mile path, 160 degree bearing from my > location), and I'm able to copy him more than approximately 95% of the days > which I would have previously said was impossible (copy meaning I can hear > him send CQ and his call sign). My RX antenna is just a small pennant > (51.6% the size of a full size pennant) using one W7IUV preamp, an old > Kenwood TS-180s with 500 Hz filter and a 200 Hz hi-per mite active audio > filter. A few times we have checked to see if sunrise enhancement would > help, but have noticed very little if any sunrise enhancement improvement. > > There are very rare days where propagation is exceptional (like 12 dB > increased signal level compared with a normal day), and all other days > signals are just above my noise floor to 6 dB above my noise floor (noise > floor not including static crashes from thunder storms). During my summer > months the signal level is much less than the static crash peaks, but still > able to copy nonetheless. > > As I said, this is something I would have never thought possible before > investing so much test time. > > Just FYI, > Don (wd8dsb) > > > _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband