[CQ-Contest] Contest QTH

[Zoltan Szoke]

Hi Guys,

First of all, I am not an antenna guru of course (even ...), but I love to play with EZNEC, MMANA and HFTA. :)
 
I think that is difficult to write about good antennas, good contest QTH, beacuse the topic is very very complex.
 
EZNEC (or MMANA) modeling of antennas is a good game, but *only flat ground*. But we need to use HFTA also  (HF Terrain Assessment by N6BV), because quite a bit of slope (or hill), and much better will be the "antenna". 
 
Everybody knows that vertical antenna ("only" vertical!) on the beach ("only" in salt water!) has really big advantage, "because of the pseudo Brewster angle" ( http://pages.prodigy.net/k2kw/tests.html ), extremely on low band. On high band  easy to compete with salt water with big stack Yagis.
 
It was a big surprise to see that the antenna height vs. gain at http://ok1vwk.sweb.cz/HFTA.htm (use google translater ;). Look at the graph below, where four big OK contest station fight for dBi vs. antenna height. :) It's interesting that the low antenna height is often better...
 
My opinion that the good contest QTH for all bands is a hill (use always HFTA!). But on low bands (160, 80 m and 40(?)) the salt water is the king, because not to easy to build Yagi on 160m.
 
(Sri for my poor English.)

73
Zoli
HA5PP
 
PS. Other "problem": elevation statistic vs. antenna height vs. antenna lobes...(in "hops mirror")