I was always intrigued by the success of our "Down Under" friends in
VK6. They tried vertical polarization and it was horrible. They had much
better luck with horizontal wires. I think this had much to do with the
gyro frequency. It depends on where you are in the world. I am about
30 miles away from salt water. My ground is poor with hills and rocky
soil. The tops of the local hills are solid rock. I tried an inverted
vee antenna for 160. It worked, but not very well. My signal was sort
of like chopped liver. No one would answer me when I called! I did
catch an opening, however, where it worked very well and I nabbed two JA
stations. I have a recording of one of the QSOs , and my signal got
very loud in JA at times. Switching to a vertical here, there was no
comparison. I went from chopped liver to meat loaf and gravy. Still it
was a long time before I worked another JA, and when I did, it was a
squeaker!
73
Dave K1WHS
On 1/15/2020 4:17 PM, donovanf@starpower.net wrote:
Roger has 27 topband QSOs in my log since February 1993,
well done!
Its interesting how our transmitting antenna experiences are exactly
opposite on both 160 and 80 meters. I've had little success with
160 meter horizontal dipoles 100 to 200 feet high compared to
my 4-square vertical array which always perform superbly.
I use only vertically polarized antennas f or topband receiving ,
a 350 foot diameter W8JI/W5ZN/N4HY passive 8-circle array,
580 foot Beverages and my transmitting 4-square array. All
receive 6 to 10 dB better for DX than horizontal dipoles at my QTH.
Many easily copied DX signals on the verticals are completely
inaudible on the horizontal dipoles.
On 80 meters I use only horizontally polarized 2 element quads
170 feet high for transmitting which are far superior to any verticals
I've tried although I've never tried anything more sophisticated than
a 4-square transmitting array.
My 80 meter quads perform very well as receiving antennas, on
some -- but not all -- very weak signals they outperform the
175 foot diameter passive 8-circle array and 580 foot Beverages.
You can never have too many antennas...
Unless they interfere with each other, a non-trivial issue.
73
Frank
W3LPL
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Kennedy" <roger@wessexproductions.co.uk>
To: topband@contesting.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 10:48:51 PM
Subject: Topband: Topband resource
"However, 160 needs vertical polarization for consistent long DX."
So how is it that I consistently work all over the world on 160m with my
horizontal dipole at 50ft?! (and my signals seem to often be pretty
comparable with other Brits using verticals}
You certainly need a Vertical to work DX on 80m . . . but in my experience
160m propagation is very different . . . I'm guessing it's often quite high
angle due to multi-hop or ducting.
Also, I don't understand why on the Web page they are talking about NA
stations coming on Top Band at 1730 UTC to work Europe . . . I don't find
the band opens to NA until at least 2200 . . . and for me signals are always
much better after midnight.
Roger G3YRO
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