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

[Dennis OConnor]

The amount of radiation/response off the back/sides of your beam is not as 
miniscule as you imagine... Unfortunately, the ARRL method of depicting 
beam patterns gives a highly distorted view of the relative amounts of 
radiation... Every beam antenna is a 360 degree antenna, except some 
directions are a bit more equal than others... 

Also, there are many directions to/from which a signal can propagate to a 
given part of the world, not just one direction so some of those 'off the 
side' contacts may not be off the side...  
Denny

> 
> 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


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