[TowerTalk] 1dB more RF Power?

Thu Apr 30 17:19:34 EDT 2020

I fantasized when running SSB as a DXpeditioner, I should have my 
recorded F10 message be the I95 song and dedicate it over the air to the 
worst lid.  It might help discipline the pileup ;) .

beware xx content

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=i+95+song+original&docid=608025321346304601&mid=89C9EE75E5E280C5AD2A89C9EE75E5E280C5AD2A&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

Grant KZ1W

On 4/30/2020 12:46, Dave Sublette wrote:
> There is no question that a well matched, efficient antenna, mounted in the
> clear is the best.  But my "pile-up anxiety" is practically non-existent.
> I know what a pile-up sounds like from a DX station's point of reception.
> For five and a half years I sat in front of a radio for 20 hours a week,
> running the pileups from Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands.  From
> December,1983 until April,1989, I was KX6DS.  I also operated as KC6TO from
> Ponape (Pohnpei) in what was then the Eastern Caroline Islands, now
> Federated States Of Micronesia. I made 83,000 QSOs and have more than
> 40,000 QSLs on the shelf in one of my closets to show for it.
> 
> One night on 20 meters there was propagation only between me and San Diego,
> California. I had no pileups and a nice ragchew developed with me and three
> San Diego stations.  they were all running 1500 watts with tribanders at 70
> feet and lived within two or three miles of each other.  So I asked them to
> start talking in turn, one after another, and to keep it up for several
> minutes.  While they were talking I watched the signal strength of each.
> One of them would be 20 dB stronger on any given round. The next sentence,
> another of them would be 20 dB stronger.  It was if a
> propagation "spotlight" was moving around the sky, just like the ones we
> used to see from the county fair. And when the spotlight shined on one of
> the stations, it was his turn to work me.
> My conclusion is that if you have a decent setup and use reasonable
> operating technique, you are pretty much assured of a QSO.  Keep in mind
> that the DX station probably does not hear many of the callers you do. I
> could put stations in the log at a rate of three or four a minute as long
> as good operating technique was maintained. I also found that if I remained
> calm and seemed to be reasonably efficient, the pileup behaved very
> reasonably.  I never criticized anyone on the air, even if I thought they
> needed a  refresher in technique or simple manners.  I did lose it one
> time.  There was one fellow, whose call mercifully escapes me, who
> persisted in sending his call right on top of every station I was trying to
> work for several minutes.  I tried to ignore him, but he was not having
> it.  I finally paused and called his callsign and asked, Are you a natural
> born lid or did you take lessons?"     He never called again and his call
> didn't appear in my log. (All in CW)
> 
> So that's why I don't worry about a dB.
> 
> 73,
> 
> Dave, K4TO
> ps -- Yes I still have the logs -- all 18 of them, spiral bound.  And I
> still get requests for QSLs.  If you are in the log, you can get a card.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 3:13 PM <n6sj at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
>> Great discussion!
>>
>> But personally, I think on CW your timing (call early, call late), keying
>> speed (call faster, call slower), and placement of your signal in the
>> receiver's passband (call high, call low) will all have a much bigger
>> effect
>> on being noticed and answered than a 1dB increase in RF signal power.
>>
>> On SSB your timing, mic equalization, enunciation, and inherent voice
>> timbre
>> will similarly swamp a 1dB power increase.
>>
>> 73,
>> Steve
>> N6SJ
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: TowerTalk <towertalk-bounces at contesting.com> On Behalf Of
>> dj7ww at t-online.de
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 8:47 AM
>> To: 'Brian Beezley' <k6sti at att.net>; towertalk at contesting.com
>> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 40m 4el KLM - replacing linear loading with coils
>>
>> Physical bending of the tubing is not necessary.
>> By using mounting plates with isolating Stauff clamps at the needed angle
>> as
>> element holders straight elements can be used.
>>
>> 73
>> Peter
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
>> Brian
>> Beezley
>> Sent: Mittwoch, 29. April 2020 16:17
>> To: towertalk at contesting.com
>> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 40m 4el KLM - replacing linear loading with coils
>>
>> The forward gain difference between my single-coil and two-coil models is
>> 0.02 dB. This is with no coil losses, whose difference might easily
>> overwhelm a small directivity difference. But I restored the coil losses
>> and
>> got the same result.
>>
>> Input resistance is in the mid-20s in ohms for the single coil model and in
>> the mid-40s for two coils. I had expected band-edge reactances to be about
>> the same for both models and thus SWR to significantly increase for the
>> single-coil model. Instead, the reactances are similar to the input
>> resistances, with only a small difference in band-edge SWR for the two
>> designs when each is matched at band center.
>>
>> I neglected to say that the AWG 5 copper-clad aluminum wire weighs 37.42
>> lbs/1000' while pure copper is 100.2 lbs/1000'. 3/16" OD refrigeration
>> service soft copper (0.1875" instead of 0.1815") with a 0.03" wall weighs
>> 57.5 lbs/1000'. 1/8" OD is 34.7 lbs/1000'. An optimized 7.7 uH coil using
>> 1/8" copper is 5.6" by 3.3" with a Q of 985. (As wire diameter decreases,
>> the proximity effect that limits coil Q decreases, which enables coils that
>> are smaller, lighter, and cheaper.)
>>
>> This describes an interesting trick for 40m Yagis:
>>
>> http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/owa.htm
>>
>> I had toyed with the idea of writing a little utility that generates wire
>> segments for an element bent using dacron lines that run from somewhere
>> near
>> the half-element midpoints back to the boom. This would eliminate the need
>> for a custom bent-element mount. You could even run the lines between
>> driven
>> element and reflector to bend both, which may improve gain even more. To do
>> this right you need the taper schedule and tubing bending parameters. Even
>> better would be to include the dacron line tension in the optimization
>> parameters and then optimize everything simultaneously. I'll leave this for
>> someone else.
>>
>> If you think the 0.5 to 1 dB a conventional OWA costs in forward gain is
>> inconsequential, check this out:
>>
>> http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/pileup.htm
>>
>> The analysis isn't definitive. But the next time it takes forever to bust a
>> pileup with your OWA, you may not be able to get the probability curves out
>> of your head.
>>
>> COIL 3.90 is here:
>>
>> http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/coil.zip
>>
>> Brian
>> _______________________________________________
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