[CQ-Contest] I need a cloudwarmer!

[Barry]

In my empiric experience, backscatter, like any scatter, works best with 
power and high antennas pointed in the direction that the band is open.

For example, how do you work EU on 10m when the band is closed to EU, 
but open to AF?  Point your antenna at AF.

Band open to CA from NM, but you need the IA station you can't hear.  
Both of you should point west for best copy.

Barry W2UP

On 11/19/2013 13:48, Steve London wrote:
> Related to this topic are these questions...
>
> What does it take to have a big backscatter signal on the high bands ? 
> Azimuth diversity (i.e. multiple antennas pointing in different 
> directions) ? Take-off angle diversity ? Is the optimum take-off angle 
> for backscatter the same as the optimum take-off angle for 1-hop, 
> non-backscatter ? I don't think I have ever seen empirical studies or 
> models that address this.
>
> I ask these questions, as it comes right on the heels of my SS Phone 
> effort. For a number of reasons, I did single-10. I know, no such 
> category in SS. It was fun and made for a lively Sunday. About 1160 
> QSO's and 80 mults. Missed IA, NE, OK - all in that backscatter range 
> from here in NM.
>
> 73,
> Steve, N2IC
>
> On 11/19/2013 10:15 AM, Tim Shoppa wrote:
>> 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.
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