[Fourlanders] 2m Antenna comparison

[w4zst at windstream.net]

Here's some interesting results for the group to ponder on.

Johnnny's 2m EME antennas have been up here at my QTH for about 3 months now.  They are two M2 2MXP20 cross-polarized antennas mounted on his tower trailer with an AzEl rotor, 12' separation on a horizontal boom (fiberglass extensions).

We have used them exclusively on horizontal polarization so far for all the EME Q's we've made, because I was using my transverter with common output rather than his with separate RX and TX connections.  This was done for trouble-shooting purposes as we had some problems with his preamp and transverter and I had bypassed the H-V relay for convenience.

Last week, Johnny and I put up the club 2m beams for the contest.  The pair of M2 2M9SSB antennas that we have been using on the BlackHawk tower trailer stacked vertically and at about 45 feet right now.

What I found interesting and would like your observations on were the results I had on last weeks Monday night 2m net.  I had an AB switch from the 2m station to be able to switch between the contest antennas and the horizontal EME antennas.  Note that the EME antennas are only about 20' high.

I followed the net control stations directions and copied almost every station that checked in from EL96 to EM77 and couldn't tell any difference switching between the two set of antennas.  The only two net check-ins that I couldn't hear were uncopyable on both sets of antennas.  those stations were North of Charlotte.  Of course, since net control is about 65 miles East of me, there would be times that stations pointing toward him might not have been optimum for me.

Anyway, I was pretty surprised that the much lower EME antennas performed so well here.  Maybe it has to do with the pretty rapid dropoff of terrain from the hilltop.  That's what Sherman said was the reason he recommended the height for the 6m antennas, both here and from the mountain.  All the leaves are off the trees right now too, so that may also be a factor, but I've had Johnny's antennas on for the monday night 2m net many times in the last 3 months before they started falling.

I have copied the FL checkins to the net off the side of the EME antennas, copied stations in central AL off the back and even the station in EM77 in KY off the back of the antennas.

I am planning to leave the 2m EME antennas and station set up for the contest as it is expected to be a good condition EME weekend and we may be able to get some good multipliers out of it.  I also plan to listen with that station while Kos is on 2m with his station and the contest antennas, just to make some futher comparisons.

I also copied K8TQK last night 59 on the EME antennas, pointed right in to the house!!

Either the 2m EME antennas are magic or the height is special.  It does make me want to get a pair of them for myself to set up here permanently for both EME and terrestrial!!  And actually so far, they've only been used with H-pol.  I did change them last night to V-pol when I had about 50+ degrees elevation and sigs off the moon were stronger with V-pol.

Let me know what you think about this antenna situation.

Thanks, Bob