Topband: Visalia Topband Dinner

[k6se@juno.com]

On 26 April, Topbanders enjoyed a special treat at the International DX
Convention in Visalia, California.  At the Topbanders' DX Dinner there,
160-meter DXers from around the world enjoyed good food, and meeting and
chatting with each other.

Ordinarily, this annual affair attracts about 30 to 40 Topbanders and the
banquet room had a capacity of 60, which I thought would be sufficient. 
Well, about 70 people attended the dinner, so the room overflowed into
the normal dining area!  My sincere apologies for any inconvenience and
for the lack of a PA system which made it difficult for some to hear the
after-dinner presentations.  Next year we hope to get a room for the
presentations at the convention hotel, which should make things better.

Following the dinner, N6FF put on an excellent presentation of the recent
PW0T DXpedition to Trinidade Island.  The photos covered a
start-to-finish chronical of the DXpedition including a pre-DXpedition
dinner for the operators, the boat trip from Rio to just offshore from
Trinidade, helicopter ride from the boat to the island, antennas used,
operators and operating positions, flora and fauna on the island, and the
helicopter and boat ride back to Rio.  Thank you, Dick, for an excellent
presentation!

After Dick's presentation, Al, K7CA put on a show about the 28-element
160-meter array that he and Jim, N7JW use in southern Utah.  Each element
of the array, located on 160 acres, is a 54-foot vertical top-loaded with
two wires so that each vertical looks like a "T" with slightly drooping
tops.  Al didn't mention the radials, but I imagine there were miles and
miles of wire used in the ground system.  Various combinations of the
antennas are used with 285' broadside and 118' endfire spacing, with
broadside elements fed in phase and endfire elements acting a parasitic
reflectors. all switchable to various directions..  With 4 elements, the
calculated gain is 8.62 dBi, 6 elements yields 10.13 dBi, and 8 elements
gives 11.65 dBi gain.  Plots of the 8-el configuration compared to a
1500' Beverage clearly show that 8 elements is vastly superior.  The
remotely-operated site is powered by storage batteries which are kept
charged by solar panels.  The rig used at the antenna site is an Omni VI+
remotely controlled by Omni VI+s at rhe operators' home QTHs.  Now all of
us W6s and W7s know why N7JW and K7CA can work EU when none of us can
hear the DX!

Thanks to all who attended - I enjoyed meeting you all, and hope to see
you again next year in Visalia!

73, de Earl, K6SE