Topband: 1610 KHz AM Channel in USA

[Richard (Rick) Karlquist]

On 7/4/2020 8:55 AM, Tree wrote:
> Been testing my new SW Beverage using the 1610 kHz channel.  This channel
> is mostly (if not entirely) low power stations - including the TIS

> Tree N6TR
> _________________

I used to have three 400ft bidirectional beverages that aimed at
30, 90, 150, 210, 270, and 330 degrees azimuth.  I always
used BCB stations as "sanity check" beacons to verify that they were 
working OK.  On many channels, I could hear 3, 4 or even 5 different
stations independently on as many beverages.

The length was limited to 400 feet because of my high conductivity
ground (not because I didn't have enough space).  They worked
fabulously down to the bottom end of the BCB, even though they
were way too short for those frequencies.

All of this success for BCB listening doesn't mean jack on 160 meters.
On the BCB, you are never fighting noise, rather just separating 
different stations.  They did also do that on 160 meters, for example, 
letting me work JA's even when stateside stations were also calling me.
What they never did well was to bring the DX out of the noise, I
guess because they were less than a wavelength long, and effectively
even less than that because my high ground conductivity attenuation
rolled off the current.  (I measured it with a current probe).
On 80 meters they started to work, and on 40 meters they were
amazing, for example, long path to EU in the morning.

As always:  YMMV!

73
Rick N6RK