Topband: Magnetic Dip Angle

[Jim Brown]

It seems to me that the question is really about two good choices. It 
has been shown that both vertical and horizontally polarized antennas 
benefit from a dropoff IN THE DIRECTION OF THE DROPOFF. Caps added for 
emphasis. It is also known that horizontal antennas don't care about 
soil/water conductivity, but do care about height, and that verticals 
don't care about height, but care a LOT about soil/water conductivity.

In addition to all of the long existing work on antennas and terrain, I 
suggest N6BT's recent work on verticals at a dropoff, and my work on the 
characteristics of horizontally and vertically polarized antennas cited 
above. My work is at k9yc.com/publish.htm  It was invited by NCJ, but 
ARRL rejected it because it was too much work for their graphics 
department (although they had published equally complex graphics in NCJ).

And there's also the issue of how well the antenna works in other 
directions. As we all know, you can never have too many antennas!

73, Jim K9YC

On 1/20/2025 10:48 AM, Andy Blank wrote:
> Hi Kenny
> 
> I have a similar situation at V47T.
> The QTH is at the edge of an 1100 ft hill, sloping down around 30degs or
> more to the Atlantic.
> 
> I have tried every kind of 160 antenna over the years. Finally settling on
> a horizontal dipole at 50ft right at the edge of the hill.
> It works great. The verticals (Inv L, Tee, C's, slopers) all performed
> about the same; just OK.
> The dipole doesn't need radials, a big plus for me.
> I use beverages for RX so that is not an issue.
> 
> That said, there is no substitute for a vertical on the beach.
> You are the master of those!
> As you know, the proximity to salt water really makes a huge difference on
> Topband.
> 
> GL!
> 
> 73, Andy N2NT
> 
> On Mon, Jan 20, 2025 at 12:53 PM Kenny Silverman <kenny.k2kw at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> I’m scouting locations for a low-band trip and I found an interesting
>> entity that has a dip angle of 30 degrees.
>>
>> In this example, there’s a high hill overlooking the ocean, another place
>> right on the beach.   With the low dip angle, does it make sense to go
>> horizontal if the horizontal polarized antenna takeoff angle is low enough?
>>
>> 73 , Kenny K2KW
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