Topband: Receiving on Directional Antenna

[Gary Breed]

from VK6VZ:

> Interesting stuff.  It would be interesting to know a little more about
> what the antennas/radios you were using in the CQ 160 and your stereo
> set-up.  Maybe you could send another short e-mail to the reflector?

Steve and all,

At W4WA in the CQ160 CW, when running, I often listened on two receivers,
one in each ear. Depending on the propagation and activity, the following
combinations were tried:

1. Evening hours with high US activity -- European Beverage and 40M beam
(for nearly omni high angle reception). Switched the Beverage to Caribbean
or elsewhere when appropriate.

2. During peak European conditions -- Two different Beverages toward EU,
1000 ft. and a quickly lashed-up 580 ft.  At EU sunrise, especially with
the UK stations, the shorter Beverage was often much better (higher angle
signals, probably).

3. Other times, two different Beverages were selected, simply to cover
key directions.

The results at W4WA were my first experiments with this technique, and the
results were promising. Much greater flexibility in antenna selection is
needed to expand on the idea.

I had a more profound experience in the ARRL DX CW test, where I operated
40M -- The TX antenna (a modest 2-el at 75 ft) was used along with 360-ft
Beverages to Europe and JA. In this case, I had both pattern and polarization
diversity. The results were fascinating - several QSOs in a row that were in
one ear or the other, or QSB fading back and forth. I also made a conscious
effort to separate the fun of something different with actual performance,
and easily concluded that this technique was a big advantage.

The switching setup is standard SO2R, just used on one band. (Plus amp
switching and RX front-end protection).

The greatest value of this technique is contesting, with lots of activity
coming from different directions. DXing might benefit from listening on
antennas with significantly different characteristics -- Beverage and
transmit antenna, low dipole, loops or ?

73, Gary
K9AY


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