[TowerTalk] Take off angles, VOACAP, etcf.

[Guy Olinger, K2AV]

That's the d*mned if you do, d*mned if you don't issue IF you only 
publish one kind of measurements.

If you don't do isotropic figures, then you can't adjust for your own 
antennas. But you ALSO need to do some runs accounting for a far end 
that has a dipole at 40 feet and couldn't transmit a signal below 15 
degrees if his life depended on it, no matter what VOACAP picks as the 
best angle for broadcasters.

That's when you start to understand how higher angles are going to 
help you work the next layer of signals in a contest.

Anybody can work the guy on the other end running a KW and a beam up 
30 meters. It's his buddy down the block running 10 watts and an 
antenna draped over a couple of short trees that will test one's rig 
and choice of antennas.

Guy.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Lux" <jimlux at earthlink.net>
To: "Jim Lux" <jimlux at earthlink.net>; "Guy Olinger, K2AV" 
<olinger at bellsouth.net>; "W3YY" <w3yy at cox.net>; "TowerTalk List" 
<towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2004 11:48 PM
Subject: [TowerTalk] Take off angles, VOACAP, etcf.


> I've been giving some thought to the VOACAP amateur radio thing..
>
> If you run VOACAP, it displays the dominant path (and it's takeoff 
> angle,
> which is presumably what N6BV used in building the statistical 
> tables).
> However, I wonder what antenna was used. If it was an isotrope, all 
> paths
> would be weighted evenly in the selection, which will tend to favor 
> the low
> angle one hop path, as opposed to the high angle two hop path.
>
> If you give VOACAP a realistic pattern typical of most ham antennas, 
> which
> have terrible gain below a few or 10 degrees, that might favor the 
> high
> angle two hop path, which would account for Guy's comments.
>
> Hmm..
>
>
>
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