[TenTec] OT: Working DX on 160m with low dipoles

[Steve Ireland]

Oops, sorry about the typo - that should have been 220 countries. 

From: Steve Ireland 
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2014 1:25 PM
To: tentec at contesting.com 
Subject: OT: Working DX on 160m with low dipoles

“Low dipoles on 160m are pretty worthless for working DX”

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As the song goes, “it ain’t necessarily so”.  A lot depends upon your ground conductivity, geomagnetic latitude and what time of night you transmit at.

I have 320 countries worked on 160m from VK6, basically all with ‘low dipoles’ (ranging from 30 to 90 feet in height), mainly worked close to sunrise/sunset (i.e. plus or minus fifteen minutes) when high angle propagation often dominates over low angle. One of my best contacts with a 45’ high dipole was VP5/WA2VYA, who was away from the sea and running about 100W to a inverted vee dipole about 15’ high. I was operating just after my sunset and he was very close to his sunrise – and a solid RST 559.

In most parts of the world, an inverted-L 1/4 wave fed against a simple K2AV or Moxon type counterpoise will be better, but not from everywhere. As the great G6XN used to say, try vertical polarisation AND horizontal polarisation from wherever you live and then use whichever works best for you.

Vy 73

Steve, VK6VZ      



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