Fwd: [CQ-Contest] 10-meter contest; directivity or the lack thereof

[Jim Rhodes]

I found that from my QTH in Nebraska, I had to turn the beam north to work 
a Texas station at one point in the contest. That had to be scatter. There 
were others that seemed to be off the short path, but that one stands out.


>Early Sunday afternoon, I was surprised to find that my tribander stack
>seemed to have lost its directivity.  The array was aimed about 45 degrees,
>but I was also getting answers off the side, from the likes of VE4-7, WA,
>OR, all the way out to KH6!  This went on for a couple of hours, till the
>Europeans were gone.
>
>A couple of explanations occurred to me:
>
>-- In this contest, people expect to be able to hear and work weak signals,
>so off-the-side QSOs happen all the time.
>
>-- Backscatter can enhance sigs in non-favored directions.
>
>Anyone got any better ideas?  I'm just curious.
>
>73, Pete N4ZR
>www.qsl.net/n4zr
>
>
>--
>CQ-Contest on WWW: http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
>Administrative requests: cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com

Jim Rhodes K0XU
jim at rhodesend.net


--
CQ-Contest on WWW: http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests: cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com