Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2020 15:58:57 +0000 (UTC) From: Roger Parsons <ve...@yahoo.com> To: topband@contesting.com Subject: Re: Topband: Topband resource
<W8JI's experience with a horizontal dipole at 300 ft is often quoted as proof that only vertical antennas are useful for 160m DX. This is not my experience with a dipole with the centre at 320 ft and the ends at over 250'. In its favoured directions it is equal to a <W4RNL half wave vertical array over a very large radial system. It is unsurprisingly not as good off the ends, and quite is useless for relatively local communications. <I am also inclined to support Roger, G3YRO, in his use of a low dipole, having myself successfully used relatively low horizontal antennas for DX in the past. There are most certainly times when higher angles are useful for DX - and possibly more frequently than <we imagine. There actually have to be, otherwise Roger would never work any DX at all. Note, this does not mean that a good vertical antenna is not often or even usually better than a low horizontal one. Finally, the UK is small compared to many other <countries, but it is not actually a tiny island. Roger's path to North America is over about 300 km of land, and he is more than 10km from the sea in any direction. <73 RogerVE3ZI/G3RBP ## AFAIK, W8JIs.. dipole was actually an inverted vee, with the apex at 300 feet....with no info on enclosed angle. Per the older arrl ant books, Inverted vees...with a 90 deg enclosed angle are omni directional. But they conducted that test on 80m, with an inverted vee up 60 feet, with a 90 deg enclosed angle. The vee was rotated 90 degs.... and signals 900 miles away did not change. No mention whether a real CM balun was used. ## Plenty of 80m rotary dipoles and 80m yagis that perform exceptionally well..at heights of 100-150 ft. That would extrapolate to 200-300 ft on 160m. Years ago, a fellow In Ore had installed the 1st F12 160 rotary dipole.... which I believe was up aprx 120 ft. His 1st contact was a 4X4. Several folks with 2 el....shorty 40 yagis up 70 ft, report that the shorty 40 yagi ate their 40m 4 squares hands down. Some have had great success with a half wave sloper......used in conjunction with a delta loop reflector...apex up. In some cases, a half wave sloper was used on either side of the delta loop REF. So 2 switchable directions were obtained. Jim VE7RF _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector