[TowerTalk] Omnidirectional antenna for domestic contests. Re: TowerTalk Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

[Jim Brown]

On Wed,10/14/2015 9:45 AM, Tom Osborne wrote:
> The 400 mile distance gets me into eastern Oregon, Northern 
> California, and western Idaho.  Not a whole lot of activity going on 
> in those areas.  Being right on the ocean I don't start getting into 
> population areas until I hit, at least, Colorado.  Quite a bit of 
> activity in Washington so that is a plus, but not like the big 
> population centers.

Yup. From my QTH 70 miles S of San Francisco, the next population center 
is LAX, at 300 miles, SDG at 400+. It's 600 miles to AZ, 800 miles to 
Seattle and Salt Lake City. Denver is nearly 1,000 miles. The populated 
part of TX is 1,200 or more. IL/WI is 1,900 miles.

> That's why it's nice to have 2 different antennas for 80 meters. 

IMO, if you can hang a high 80M dipole, the only reason to have another 
80M antenna is to put it at 90 degrees to the first one. My experience 
and my modeling show that. When working US, I mostly run my dipole 
broadside east, and switch to the other one to hear weak US stations 
calling me.

Several years ago, I added a reflector to that E-facing dipole to pick 
up a few dB on the east coast and EU.

73, Jim K9YC