I've picked the brain of several regulars on this list. Thought I'd share
my experience.
I installed a low dipole for 160m RX. One leg runs 130 ft approx NW and the
other leg runs 60 feet SE then folds down and back at about the 1 1/2 ft
level for the rest of 130 ft. This is just the physical constraint of what
is available to me on a small city lot.
Noise is extremely low on this antenna compared to my shunt fed tower or
rotary 40m dipole (at 60 ft). I haven't tried an external preamp - yet. I
worked HP1XVH on 160 last night. He was copyable on the tower shunt and 40m
dipole but the S/N improvement on the low dipole was nothing short of
dramatic! Still took me 10 minutes or so to work him as I guess his QRN
level was high.
At the same time, east coast reports of DF2PY left me drooling as Wolf
wasn't even 20 db below ESP here in Los Angeles. Perhaps I'll catch him on
a lucky opening later in the season.
The low dipole for RX works! Tks to K1ZM, W8JI, KD9SV and anyone else I've
forgotten.
73, Steve WB6RSE
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