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[TowerTalk] 10m-20m Antennas Above 150ft

To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: [TowerTalk] 10m-20m Antennas Above 150ft
From: ve9aa@nbnet.nb.ca (Mike & Coreen Smith)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 22:49:58 -0400
Nat/Group.

I can't speak from DIRECT experience with a 10m yagi @ 150', but I am a firm
believer
that the HIGHER the better.
All those that say a yagi @ 40' will beat the pants off everyone for 1/2 the
day on 20m is full of baloney (IMO)

If you are emitting a radio wave at extremely low angles (1-2 degrees) you
will open and close the band.

The past 10 years I have LIVED on 6 Meters (daily) and it's always the guys
with tall towers and big beams
(100+ feet or big stacks @ 60'-70'--equivalent to your 10m antenna @
150'-200' in terms of wavelengths) that are the loudest, most consistent and
longest heard from).  On very weak openings sometimes it's ONLY the guys
with high towers (and not neccessarily kW's) that make it through.

There are RARE exceptions, but I would say this is the case 90% of the time.

I know I'll see a flood of Emails claiming that "my KT34xa @ 40' is a big
gun antenna", but IMO
they'll never cream the likes of KC1XX, W0AIH, K9HMB etc. etc. in the
pileup who have yagis
up into the stratosphere. Why would people go to the expensive of spending
countless fortunes
tall towers otherwise?  It's certainly more than a status symbol among the
well to do of our hobby.

Antenna height is where it's at.

And now for the guys that cringe @ anecdotal stories, allow me to just cite
one small example from nearly 1/4 century of DXing. Back in 1993 I worked
the first ever North American contact on 6 Meters with Poland.  In the same
multi Es  opening I also worked handfuls of G stations on 6m. Why? Well, I
wasn't at home (my home QTH= 30' ASL) All the big
guns were on the band that day (June VHF contest), VE1RG, VE1YX, VE1PZ,
VE1ZZ, etc.+ all the W1 gang, KM1H
WA1OUB, WA1T, etc. and not a single one of them even HEARD any SP stations,
and very few of them worked
more than a few G stations. Wanna know why?  I was portable on a local ski
hill with a 5el yagi on the roof of my car
at something like 1000'-1200' (not high in terms of a lot of Western  USA
hills, but in southern NB it represents a significant Molehill!    I am
convinced that because of the very low angle my radiowave was taking, it
made all the difference.

Sometimes a tower is more than a tower (!)

Sometimes living on a mountain is even better.

de VE9Antenna Antenna

Michael, Coreen & Corey Smith
(VE9AA,  VE9AAA & Little-VE9 to be)
271 Smith Rd
Waterville, NB
E2V 3V6
Canada
http://members.tripod.com/~ve9aa/index.html
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/2174/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nat Heatwole" <nat@ajheatwole.com>
To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 10:11 PM
Subject: [TowerTalk] 10m-20m Antennas Above 150ft


>
> I've noticed that both KC1XX and W3LPL have yagis for 10m-20m going all
> the way to 200ft high. Are yagis in the 150-200ft range for those bands
> really all that useful, or are they more of a "few QSOs per contest"
> level of usage? I would assume that once you get above say 150ft there
> wouldn't be a whole lot of cause to put yagis even higher, correct? Is
> there really enough long haul DX at those heights or is it really just
> for a handful of QSOs?
>
> 73, Nat, WZ3AR
> <nat@ajheatwole.com>
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________
Where do you get ICE bandpass filters & beverage matching boxes?  The
same place that pays for the hosting of this list:  The eHam Store.
Order online at http://store.eham.net.
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