> To: <topband@contesting.com>
W2EQS / 9 W9NFC (Charlie SK) worked DXCC with a low dipole, but he
was usually five S units weaker than me (he was in Indiana, I was in
Toledo).
Here in Georgia with rocky clay (4 mS/m) my vertical still
skunked a dipole at 100 ft.
Perhaps this is because all of my verticals always used good radial
systems.
> Sometimes a good low horizontal can be better than a good high vertical -if
> your soil is poor, maybe most of the time. My bent low dipole has got me
> over 90 countries on 160m.
I'm not so sure anecdotal "I worked X country" reports mean
anything at all in the long run. Working DX is a matter of time and
persistence, more so than ten or twenty dB of signal strength. After
all, I've worked VK's who were mobile and worked VK's from my mobile
on 160...and antennas like that are only about one percent
efficient at best!
Listening to DX since 1963 on 160, the outstanding signals always
been from verticals. Not that low horizontals can't be heard, they
can be. Just not as well.
73, Tom W8JI
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