Topband: QSB`ed opening

[Bill Tippett]

G3ROO wrote:

 >Bill W4ZV had a great ragchew last night at 0250z
for about 30 minutes

         Think that was actually 0130z Ian...you must
have been sleepy!

         Related to K2AV's question about propagation,
Ian and I had an interesting experience.  Ian has both
a vertical and dipole and tried switching between
them to see which was best.  I could detect no RX
difference.  Then I tried transmitting with my
vertical array and inverted-V.  Ian could detect no
RX difference on his side.  The strange thing is that
both of us seemed to receive best on our low-angle
antennas (verticals/Beverages) and not high-angle
antennas (dipole/vee).  In my case, Ian's signal was
stronger on RX by ~10 dB when using my vertical array
versus inverted-V.

         Whatever was going on appeared to be consistent
on both sides of our path (i.e. no difference on TX
between high or low-angle antennas, but RX seemed to
work better with low angle antennas).  This seems
to indicate angles were different at each end of the
path (i.e. incoming was at a lower angle than outgoing).
It makes no sense to me but not much else does on 160
either.  :-)

         I also noticed DF2PY's comment about his verticals
being better than his Beverages, which seems inconsistent
since both are low-angle antennas with peak TOA around
the same area (~25 degrees).   Strange...and I defer to
the experts!

                                         73,  Bill  W4ZV