Topband: poor antennas

[Arne Gjerning]

I sure would like to hear EU signals form the east coast some time.
Though not on the left coast, New Mexico is just a bit farther from EU
than the right coast. My simple piece of salvaged wire which was long
enough allows me to have a bit of fun on 160M. Don't know how long my
sloper is; I just adjusted the lenght for minimum SWR on 1825 and quit
working on it. It goes from 80ft on tower to about 2ft from the ground
(hey, I had to run under electrical power lines). I do not use any other
antennas for rx, just the sloper...

When Wolf, DF2PY, visited here in Dec 1998 he could not believe my
simple antenna. The wire was free, 2  insulators were $1.50 each and 165
ft of RG-213 I have had for a few years (about $40.00).

160M is a passion, just like doing meteor scattter or EME work on the
VHF/UHF bands. Lot of time spent listening to the noise.

Have I had fun? ABSOLUTELY, with 9M0C, XZ0A, BY1QH/OH2PM in the log for
best dx.

On 28 Jan 2000 worked DF2PY on cw the we went to SSB for about 10
minutes. GREAT opening that night. Oh, btw, had barely heard faint XZ0A
signals on the weekends prior to 06 Feb the fantastic opening from 1330
to 1350Z. My QSO was at 1332Z on my first call. Darn lucky to catch
propagation just right.

To echo comments get on and do it with whatever you can put up for
antennas. As in life, 160M antennas are not equal. I LOVE THIS BAND,
took only about 39 years to get here.

73 de Arne N7KA
Nr Albuquerque, New Mexico



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