Hey folks. I've been a ham for 37 years, but I've spent my entire ham "career" on 80-10m (with the exception of 7 countries worked on 160m about ten years ago). For the most part, the same obstacle h
Hi Mike - welcome to the topband reflector and 160 meters. I think the first thing would be to turn you 90 degrees and get you thinking vertically. Most any modest vertical with a decent ground syst
-- Never discount the ability of a low horizontal to do amazing things at times on 160. This not to replace the vertical but to augment it. Wire and a coax switch is cheap. Many on here remember the
Mike , you have to hear them before you can work them. Take a look at the HI-Z 3 element RX array. Takes very little space. http://www.hizantennas.com/ takes only a 50ft square layout. GL, you will h
That's a very ambitious objective. It took me three seasons to do it when I moved from Chicago to CA, and two more years to get the confirmations. It's much easier from W9 than from W6, but it's stil
Hey folks. I've been a ham for 37 years, but I've spent my entire ham "career" on 80-10m (with the exception of 7 countries worked on 160m about ten years ago). For the most part, the same obstacle h
Welcome to the Topband. I don't operate as much as most people here do (I have a soldering iron in my hand far more than a key or mic), but I've found it true that you need: 1. A vertical antenna for
DXCC on 160 in two years from 9 land isn't an unreasonable goal. Start with one the 160 meter contests and that should start you off with about 40-60 if you look for the DX stations. At the end of on
Mike, I agree 100% with Price and Tree. As a relative newcomer to 160, from personal experience my suggestion would be to go with an Inverted-L with raised radials -- no need for a ground connection
Okay... great responses all. Here's what I think I'm gonna do... I'll go vertical with an inverted L. I'm thinking to be resonant around 1.825MHz, I'll need about 128.2' of wire. I'll go up about 70'
The November CQ WW CW DX Contest is the best weekend of the season for 160 meter DX activity, several U.S. stations have worked 100 countries on 160 meters in a single weekend in that one. The CQ WW
Since you mentioned a tuner, Buy or build a tuner. I have two that handle 1.5 kw without blinking. One is the murch transmatch which was popular 25 years ago, the other is the ultimate transmatch tha
Hi Mike, The following is assuming that you would not knowingly throw away dB on suboptimal 160 antenna construction, provided the issues were manageable in your situation. I have clear evidence, for
Pardon me for asking a dumb question... but how do you guys switch between the beverage antenna and the inverted-L... given that your XCVR has only a single antenna port for both TX/RX? Mike, WA9PIE
For most serious 160M operators, that is NOT a given. Either we find a rig that has a separate input for an RX antenna, or we modify the rig to add one. N6TR published a nice applications note quite
Hi, Mike Many transceivers do NOT have a separate input for a receive antenna, particularly older ones. For those rigs there are a few auxiliary boxes, like DXpedition II that pipe the one transceive
Maybe your transceiver. Mine have a seperate receive antenna port as built that can easily be returned to the TX antenna with a toggle switch. The alternative is a high isolation coax relay that only
I did also this mod to my TS850. A great radio with no RX but with this mod you have a superb radio for the money. Another option is the DXPedition II box from KD9SV http://www.radio-ware.com/product
Or you add an antenna switch between the transceiver and amplifier like this one: http://www.radiobooks.com/products/svdxii.htm The KD9SV unit is a commercial unit that includes receive antenna swit
Some newer rigs like the Icom !C-7410 do not have a separate RX antenna input. One reason was probably that the close proximity of a TX antenna would often take out front ends. I currently use the DX