What I have found to work well is taking advantage of a radio with dual
receivers, not necessarily "locked", ie. diversity as in the K3, but at
least on the same frequency. The main RX is fixed on the "hot"
direction at the moment, whether that be "NE" during EU peak hours or
"W" after EU sunrise. The sub-RX is connected to either my beverage
"group" or the circular array (8-el BSEF). In either case, the
switching controller I use (homebrew) scans through directions
(selectable, usually skip "N" and the direction already on the main RX),
with about a 1/2 - 3/4 sec delay between switching, pausing during
transmit. I have seen comments in the past on here that scanning was
never found to be effective, but I gather much of this probably had to
do with the lack of flexibility in the switching / controlling system
used (ie. scan delays not adjustable, antennas added/removed from scan
sequence on the fly, etc).
Having a diversity capable rig is helpful if the station is weak, a
single button press on my switching controller ("Track" button) will
switch the opposite receiver selection to an available RX antenna in the
same direction as the one being requested to be tracked, work him, then
click the "Track" button again on my controller and the original
opposite receive antenna selection is restored.
73 Eric NO3M
On 12/28/2015 11:47 AM, Art Snapper wrote:
Do any of you wish to share your methodology on using directional receive
antennas during a run?
The inverted-L was way too noisy with the lightning static, to hear weak
and distant stations.
On the other hand, I am sure I missed some stations, by being on the
wrong-direction receiving antenna at the time they called.
de Art NK8X
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