[RTTY] RTTY Contesting and Verticals

[Amos, Ian]

I agree with John.  Do not give up on a verticals if it will fit the
bill for your location.  When I started back in radio in 2003 after
years of being away I did not know where my interest would be so I
bought the Hygain AV-640 Patriot all band vertical 6m - 40m.  The 640
has a counterpoise which helps but as always the more radials the
better.  I found with only a few radial that I could work most station
that I heard with 100 watts on CW and RTTY.  SSB was a lot tougher.  40
meters did however present some challenges to work the weaker stations
but if I stood in line I could make contact.  Having 2 dogs running
around the antenna in the backyard was a problem so I put the vertical
up on a 30 foot tower. To my surprise the antenna actually works better
overall on all bands.  A friend of mine has the Butternut HF6V mounted
at 20 feet with 4 radials on the roof - 2 for 40m and 2 for 20m and has
similar results as me.  Vertical are generally more noisy than
horizontal antennas but there are ways around that issue as well.  All
these produced over 19000 QSO, mostly RTTY contesting with my old call
VE3ESH, DXCC, WAS and 36 Zones.  Being tired of standing line I have
since put a small beam up at 45 feet and have the an Alpha Delta Sloper
for 40 thru 160.  The sloper is a real fire cracker for me and has beat
all my other 160 or 80 m antennas that I have tried over the years.  It
is generally better on 40 m within North America but the vertical still
generally wins on DX.

As always, ask a few hams a question and get many opinions .... Good
luck with your project and see you on the bands

Ian
VE3JI


From: "John Barber GW4SKA" <ska at bartg.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [RTTY] RTTY Contesting
To: <ki6dy at sbcglobal.net>, "'RTTY Contesting'" <rtty at contesting.com>,
	"Don Hill AA5AU" <aa5au at bellsouth.net>
Message-ID: <068d01c9ae01$d4264d10$1501a8c0 at Shack>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
	reply-type=original

Just a note on verticals. Don't write off running a vertical with
limited 
radials or not on the ground. It's not the right way to do it but can
still 
give reasonable results if there is no other option.

I run a quarter wave vertical on 40M with the base of the aerial about
12ft 
up and just 4 quarter wave radials sloping down to ground. It was the
only 
way to do the job, because of buildings that would prevent any radials
at 
ground level. Good enough for 800 - 1000 Qs on 40 in any of the big RTTY

contests.

Cheers,

John GW4SKA


	Ian S. Amos, P.Eng
> Solutions Consultant
> SAP Canada Inc.
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