Until yesterday, I was very discouraged about my 160 situation towards
EU. My short, steeply angled beverage was picking up very high power
line noise - 4 S-units higher than the SE and NW beverages. I made some
changes yesterday afternoon - the Europe beverage is now 600+ feet, but
is even more steeply angled than it was. At one point, it runs off the
edge of a 50 foot cliff, before resuming a more modest 20 degree
downhill grade. With my extremely poor soil conditions (soil ?, what
soil ? just limestone boulders, with quartz intrusions !), I hammered a
ground rod in the best I could, and didn't even bother with a
terminating resistor. To my pleasant surprise, it is now a very quiet
beverage. For those of you wondering whether a beverage has to run
horizontally, over flat ground, to work, the answer is an emphatic NO !
First European worked was LY3UM at 0025Z, 25 minutes before sunset. I
never felt loud enough to CQ, so I just picked off stations through the
evening, going QRT at 0525Z. Worked a total of 24 Europeans. S58A was
incredibly strong early in the opening, while SM5EDX was top dog later
in the opening. Most interesting DX was 9H1ZA, although UA3BS and UT3MD
were certainly new countries from the NM QTH.
I'm getting adjusted to lowering my expectations on 160 from this QTH.
From the previous Colorado QTH, I had just a quarter-wave sloper, but
excellent soil characteristics (flat, irrigated, clay soil). Anything I
could hear on 160, I could work, usually easily. From my NM hilltop,
with a full-size vertical, and 13 ground-mounted radials, I feel 6-10 dB
weaker into EU. The same EU stations that used to copy me when I dumped
in my call once now have to struggle to hear me. The signal reports
I received last nite were 539 to 579, with the majority being 559. I
also consistently lost out in pileups to my neighbors in AZ. It's
clearly going to take some significant effort to make up the signal
deficit. More radials might buy me 3 dB, but not 10 dB !
Looking forward to more 160 fun ! Thanks to the 24 Europeans who worked
hard to copy me.
73,
Steve, N2IC/5
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