TopBand: Vertical vs horizontal

[Donald I Field]

Have been watching the discussion with interest. I suspect it's not so much
vertical vs. horizontal antennas, but high-angle vs. low-angle radiation.
As such, to be a "big gun" on 160 you really need to be able to cater for
both, as conditions can vary so much from path to path and from day to day.
I always recall a particular topband contest some years back (I think it
was one of those sponsored by 73 Magazine, which used to run 160, 80 and 40
metre contests). I put up a high inverted-L for DX working, and a low (30ft
at the centre!) inverted-vee to work the UK and Europe. On night one I
couldn't raise any W/VE stations on the inverted-L, but almost all of them
responded first call on the low inverted-vee! On the second night
everything was back to normal - the inverted-vee worked only for close-in
stuff, whereas the inverted-L did the trick for DX. I wish now that I had
noted the solar data for the two nights - it might have been possible to
draw some conclusions.

Don G3XTT

--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions:              topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-topband@contesting.com