Topband: Skimmer calibration

[donovanf at starpower.net]

Iceland:  three people per square km

----- Original Message -----
From: Tracey Gardner <tracey.gardner at talktalk.net>
To: topband at contesting.com
Sent: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 02:30:49 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Topband:  Skimmer calibration


Hello Mike

 You forget that on this side of the pond, the majority of us live on pocket
handkerchief sized plots. :-)
The representative of a major building company in the UK was on TV yesterday
saying that 1000 sq ft was plenty big enough for a three bedroomed house.
I imagine that would be the area of one room in a lot of houses in the USA.
Even a K9AY needs a 30ft by 30ft space with a central support and a lot of
new builds here don't even have gardens that size.

You've only got to look at the population densities to begin to see the
problem

 Population density (people per sq. km of land area)

 USA  - 35
UK    - 265
Netherlands - 498
France - 121
Germany - 231
Italy - 203

 We'd all love to have the space to put up phased arrays or Beverages
and even a Flag, K9AY, EWE, is out of the question for a large number of us.

 And as for quiet locations well for the vast majority of us those again are
 a thing of the past unless you go out portable.
Switched mode power supplies and cheap plasma TVs etc have seen to that.
Nothing comes with a good old linear power supply nowadays and any
power supply coming out of the Far East has got to be suspect

 73s Tracey G5VU



 On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 5:33 AM, Mike Waters <mikewate at gmail.com> wrote:

> When I last investigated, all the skimmers and Web SDRs that were outside
> of North America all had terrible receive antennas for copying DX signals
> on 160. (And who knows how many of them are in quiet locations?)
>
> When I say "terrible", I mean small "magnetic" loops, very short whips, 
> low dipoles, a random end-fed wire, etc. No phased arrays or Beverages, 
> and not even a Flag, K9AY, EWE, etc.
>
> Does anyone know if that is still the case?
>
> 73, Mike
> www.w0btu.com
> _________________
> 

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