Hi pete....
Thank you for the nice words... I agree that this is a good bunch....
I want to make a couple of comments.... first, a hundred foot tower with a
new, state of the art beam, is not laughable.... It puts you well into the
upper quartile of contestors as far as rotating machinery....Check the
archives for the recent comments of Frank, W3LPL on antenna heights... He
clearly states, that based on experience, if he were limited to just one
antenna height, it would be the hundred footers - not the two hundreds! He
noted that for sheer, production rate the hundred footers bring home the
bacon... The other towers fill in the pattern nulls on the ten squared
aluminum and dig out the really, low angle multipliers...But, those
multipliers would be wasted effort if the hundred footers weren't there to
bring home a truck load of Q's to multiply..
Secondly, the C3 is a fine antenna...Radiation efficiency is vastly
underrated in the ham community... Force uses the novel, coaxial coupled
dipole configuration for the driven elements, which keeps the radiation
resistance up... Higher radiation resistance means that the oscillating
electrons on the skin of the aluminum, spend more joules building an EM
field, and fewer joules warming the aluminum...While birds may appreciate
warm toes, I doubt they will give you any Q's...
Next, forward gain is overrated in contesting... Each dB of gain carries the
penalty of narrowing the azimuth coverage of the forward lobe, which means
that your footprint is narrower on the next continent, which means that you
will illuminate fewer contest stations on any given heading....For a contest
you want to hear and work as many stations as possible...You need "just
enough gain" to hear and work them...Any increase in gain simply narrows your
footprint causing you to miss more Q's to each side... A lower elevation
angle for the main lobe, which is a function of that nice, new tower, is the
key....
Where you will want to improve later, is to vertically stack another C3 to
suppress the higher angle lobes and concentrate more power in the lower angle
lobe without narrowing the footprint... i.e. have your cake and eat it too!
... Incidentally, the guys with the really _big_ stacks of monobanders
spend large chunks of time with the uppers pointed off the lowers heading...
Doing what?... Converting gain into a wider footprint !
Lastly, (bet you couldn't wait for me to run down here :) who is your
immediate competition?............................... It should be
yourself....
If it is the guys listed in the boxes in CQ mag year after year, you are
definitely undergunned (you and me both).... Use your nice, new setup to
contest this winter and see where you rate in your region/zone...Then set
your improvement goals... I'll bet that you are the weakest link in your
station {I KNOW that I am}.... Increase your knowledge of propagation, can
you work a pile up effectively... are you aware of _all_ the long path
openings at odd times, (I know I miss them... {some times only 20 minutes
long, but several multipliers deep} ),
Later, you will want to add some hard line to the beam(s) {75 ohm cable tv
works!}, add some low noise receiving antennas {beverages on the ground
along the neighbors fence lines at night :) }, add a second transceiver with
a multiplier antenna {put that R5 back to work}, beef up the amp until it
can truly handle a brick on the key, audio mixers for the two receivers,
comfortable chair and desk with the layout optimized for a 48 hour grind
{analyze the pictures in CQ}.... anyway, you get the picture....
Nice hearing from you... now, what size nails for the shingles?
Denny k8do@aol.com
>From john.devoldere@eunet.be (John Devoldere) Thu Oct 5 22:36:35 1995
From: john.devoldere@eunet.be (John Devoldere) (John Devoldere)
Subject: FT1000MP
Message-ID: <199510052136.WAA28915@box.eunet.be>
Re: 3 weeks with the FT1000MP.
------------------------------
Sorry for a few typos.... Change FT1000ZD to FT1000MP....
73
John
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john.devoldere@box.eunet.be
Call us in all major 1995 contests: OT5T or ON4UN
John Devoldere (ON4UN-AA4OI)
POBOX 41
B-9000 Ghent (Belgium)
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