Topband: Topband DX/NVIS

[Stan Stockton]

When first married, 48 years ago, I ran a wire around the small yard at the house we rented.  I don’t think any part of that end fed wire was more than 15 feet off the ground and there was nothing more than a short piece of pipe driven in the ground.  I had a Drake B Line and no amplifier.  One night I was thrilled when several European stations I worked were moving the S Meter on the R-4B to way over S9 - in Arkansas!  Not sure I’ve ever heard Europeans so loud in Arkansas with big antennas.

One day I’ll stumble onto my logbooks from the earlier days and perhaps post the day to see what others might have experienced that night.  Either that or I’ll find out it was a really vivid/realistic dream that I’ve carried with me for nearly five decades.

73  Stan, K5GO

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 25, 2023, at 4:48 PM, Gene Smar via Topband <topband at contesting.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my Radio Shack TRS-80 model 100 laptop computer 
> <snip>Note: A friend is convinced that a low wire just a few ft off the
> ground, on land adjacent to a freshwater lake will produce booming
> signals for NVIS purposes.<snip>
> The military radio collector group to which I belong tried something similar in the valleys of the Pocono Mountains of NE PA during a hamfest there a few years back. The Vietnam vets who had been in spec ops had us unroll an 80M dipole and hold it at eye level by pulling on the guy ropes while they transmitted through it at 50W on SSB from a PRC-47. We managed to talk back to the NCS at base camp two mountain valleys away loud and clear, while a Ham from upstate NY joined in on the fun. The vets told us they used this low antenna trick all the time while out on their LRRPs.
> <snip>All antennas are fun. Some more than others.
> <snip>
> That they are. 
> 73 de Gene Smar AD3F 
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