[TowerTalk] 5 db required to see?

[Guy Olinger, K2AV]

A reply to MANY (last post stirred up things...)   K1VR operated there.
THAT was fun, wasn't it....

As I said early on, personally I would spend money to get 2 dB, BECAUSE,
as others state, I hope to add that to other pieces of dB's here and
there to get something more like 4, 5, (gasp), even 6 dB over the old
setup before I am done.

In a given year, say, a new feedline, an antenna upgrade. 2.5 dB? It
WILL make some kind of a difference.

I reacted, as did others, to the term LAYER. I reacted to the word
SIGNIFICANT.

As to 0.3 dB, there WERE those that said 0.3 dB (all by itself) was
"significant". I would call the difference between Station B and Station
C in the prior post "significant" (being heard in EU 2 hours before the
crowd). THAT difference was ALWAYS there, always NOTICEABLE, by EITHER
end of the qso. Didn't take a meter calibrated to tenths of a dB to
figure it out. Translate forward in time: KC1XX, VE1ZZ...

The 0.2's 0.5's, and 1.0's, yes, and maybe even 2.0's in the dB world
are INCREMENTALS. VERY VALUABLE in a stack. That was, after all, how
W4BVV got to be Station C). He had a BIG stack of incrementals. No, it
wasn't JUST the monster 40 yagi. That was the crown, but it wouldn't
have played so on a 50' tower, or at MY Alexandria QTH, etc, etc.

73, and may you all exercise your 0.1's in the WPX. Hope to work you
from NY4A.

- - . . .   . . . - -     .   . . .     - - .   . - . .

k2av@contesting.com
Apex, NC, USA

----- Original Message -----
From: Pete Smith <n4zr@contesting.com>
To: <Towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2000 10:16 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 5 db required to see?


>
> At 09:48 PM 5/24/00 -0400, Guy Olinger, K2AV wrote:
> ... On 40 meters there were only three layers.
>
> I think this "layer" terminology is misleading.  What we're really
talking
> about is the QSO/multiplier advantage that results, over 48 hours,
from
> having as little as 1 db more effective gain at the arrival angles
needed
> for communication with a given area.  Here in the East, where Europe
is
> almost the whole game, particularly so far as rate is concerned, we're
> talking about being 1 dB louder into Europe.  Over 48 hours, and a
thousand
> contacts or so, it is inevitable that the 1-dB advantage will result
in a
> few QSOs made that would not have been, otherwise.
>
> Can you hear the difference, reliably, during any given QSO - of
course
> not.  Is that 1 dB worth finding?  You bet!
>
> 73, Pete Smith N4ZR
> n4zr@contesting.com
>
>
>
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>


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