[TowerTalk] First Hop Skip Distance

[Dave Hachadorian]

On Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:37:09 -0500 "Nat Heatwole" <nat@ajheatwole.com>
writes:
> 
> Forgive my ignorance on this topic, but I'm wondering if there is a 
> good
> way to determine exactly how far away the "first hop" is from a 
> given
> QTH. Is there a constant number that's often used as the first hop
> distance or is the distance a factor of several different things, 
> like
> frequency, take off angle, polirization, or antenna height for 
> example?
> What about the hops after the first, is there any way to tell 
> exactly
> how far away they are? Any input is much appreciated.

It varies with a lot of things, especially time of day, time of
year, and solar flux, in addition to the ones you listed above.

A great way to gain insight into this sort of question is to
download the program W6ELPROP from
http://www.qsl.net/w6elprop/

In the Advanced Tab, it shows you how many hops are the
predominant mode on a given path. You can change the
path length to see where the single hop begins and ends.

This is a terrific program. Thanks to W6EL for making it
available at no charge.


Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
Yuma, AZ
K6LL@juno.com

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