Topband: High Desert Oregon End of season

[Lee K7TJR]

      I guess it seems earlier every year to me when the farmer says its 
time to pull the RX antennas from the field. I got the word today which 
means by tomorrow night they will all be down. I will put up a temporary 
Hi-Z 4-square but it will be too close to my Tx antenna. I know it will 
improve things quite a bit but I will really miss the "Big Iron" for a while. 
I have seen quite a shift this year in my antenna usage habits. My 
newest 8 element array is so good that I seldom use the 1000 foot 
Beverages at all for 160 any more. I may not even put them up next 
year if I can work out an array of small verticals for 80 meters. The larger 
160 arrays do not work for 80 meters. RIP faithful Beverages. My 
wildest dreams today said to me "convert all those fence posts to hold 
up small verticals and build a 4-square of 8 element arrays". Well wow, 
we will see if I have that much ambition next spring. It seems to work on 
paper. I have two 8 element arrays now and they work well together. 
     The newest array is 8 elements in a 350 foot diameter 4 active array 
of shortened verticals using my High impedance amplifiers. It has a 
super clean pattern which I really never thought I needed as long as I 
had good RDF. I guess I was wrong. It sure has a unique presence 
even when the older 8 element array has a better RDF but worse 
pattern. I cant put my finger on why it is better yet but I am sure some 
more time in the saddle will show me. 
     Any way the point to all this note is that I had a really fun season this 
year adding 28 new countries in about 325 DX qsos with VK9GMW 
being #156 on 160. 
     I took a few minutes and posted some sound bites on a link at
 http://www.k7tjr.com/lees_radio_page.htm . I forgot many times to record 
some of the best stuff like 4Z5J but I got many others. I also have 
included a little demo file on how the new array compares to my 90 foot 
TX antenna.
    Thanks Guys for all the fun...   Lee K7TJR OR