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Re: Topband: Take-Off Angle Question

To: topband@contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: Take-Off Angle Question
From: W2RU - Bud Hippisley <W2RU@frontiernet.net>
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 14:53:54 +0000
List-post: <mailto:topband@contesting.com>
Bill Tippett wrote:

>         It's been a weird experience in the evenings to
>tune across the band using a Beverage toward Europe.
>European signals sound like locals (S9+) and Western
>NA signals sound like DX.
>
Here in upstate NY I have two very short Beverages -- one "sorta" NE 
(300 feet) and one "sorta" NW (200 feet).  Usually they give me only a 
few dB of differential gain or rejection.  But last night was quite 
unusual.  N6TR and I called a European station simultaneously at one 
point.  I didn't even realize Tree was in there until the EU station 
came back to him.  I switched to the NW Beverage and Tree went from 
inaudible to 589 !  From then on, I switched back and forth between the 
two Beverages at each mini-pile-up I came across, and I had similar 
results with at least another five or six west coast USA and both 
western Canada stations I heard -- plus, of course, KL7HBK.

>  I believe this is due to
>the very low-angle propagation since Beverages work
>best (max F/R) at very low angles.  See the very
>bottom of the web page above for an elevation plot
>of an end-fire Beverage array.
>  
>
There have been many nights when I've been ready to tear down my short 
Beverages.  After last night, they're "keepers" !!!

Using W6EL MiniProp's Frequency Map this morning with K=1, I had to 
crank the solar flux up to 120 to simulate this morning's 15-meter 
opening to Europe from this 44-degree northern latitude.  Interesting, 
coming on the heels of the last few nights' topband conditions.

Bud, W2RU

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