[TowerTalk] Re: [CQ-Contest] Re: 2 dB more?

[Pete Smith]

At 11:25 AM 12/31/01 EST, K7LXC wrote:
>
>    A Texas contest station owner said a dB is worth about $1500 at his
place.

Steve's $1500/dB Texan must have already done all the cheap stuff.  Ages
ago (1960's), W3AFM wrote a series for QST in which he drew curves giving
cost per dB for a number of different kinds of station improvements.  The
data are of little use now (tower sections at $10 apiece!), but the basic
idea is that the marginal cost per dB depends on where you start from.  A
$500 SB-220 is the cheapest 10 dB you can get over your barefoot
transceiver, and a tribander on a roof tripod is a comparable boost over a
ground mounted vertical, for maybe twice as much money, but once you've
done those couple of things the marginal cost of further improvements goes
up in a hurry.   

73, Pete N4ZR

The revised World Contest 
Station Database
is online at www.pvrc.org





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