[CQ-Contest] I need a cloudwarmer!

[Tim Shoppa]

Hans, I feel in the same situation on the high bands at least. I can work
CA over and over again on 10M but what's the fun in that? On sweeps this
isn't a great loss because it's once per contest, but in a once per band
contest like NAQP I end up with decidedly few multipliers on 10M.

I built some low dipoles and vees, which according the models had more high
angle radiation. But in actual tests, I find they are uniformly down 6-10dB
no matter what the distance compared to my high wire.

I think the only solution to picking up more mults on the high bands is
more gain, but that comes with the cost of narrower beamwidth. I have heard
some of the top-notch midwest contest stations in domestic tests: They
either have multiple transmit antennas, or some kind of easily switchable
array, because I hear them cycling through directions on each CQ and then
when I call them they go "loud" in my direction. I do something similar but
receive-only with my K9AY loop in a 160 test, because I use foot-switches
to pick the direction, and the nulls are so deep that when I'm listening SE
that a loud New England station just isn't there, that I routinely cycle
direction after each CQ.

Tim N3QE.