[TowerTalk] Vertical versus horizontal polarization on 160m

[N1BUG]

Sometimes crazy things happen on 160.

I've had extensive experience with a 100 foot shunt fed, top loaded 
tower over 100 radials and an inverted V, apex at 75 feet. Actually not 
very inverted with the ends at 20 feet. I had both antennas up for 
several years. Most of the time the vertical won by a wide margin or was 
the only antenna I could work the DX with.

One day when I was in the middle of making changes the vertical wasn't 
available and neither were my Beverages. I heard 9M2AX CQing on the long 
path and he was 579 on the inverted V! I got him on the first call, even 
beating out VE1ZZ with his four square. I think that was the one and 
only time I ever got past Jack on working DX. That's some crazy stuff! 
There were some days the mainly horizontal wire would win out to Europe 
at my sunset, and some similar sunset anomalies with VQ9 and 8Q7. But 
the vast majority of time the vertical was the clear and decisive winner.

73,
Paul N1BUG



On 1/23/22 6:32 PM, David Gilbert wrote:
> 
> Recent threads here have pointed out the adverse effect of poor ground 
> conductivity on vertical polarization versus horizontal polarization, 
> but as best I understand things there is some advantage to vertical 
> polarization due to the gyro-frequency of electrons in the atmosphere. 
> Bob Brown, NM7M (SK), was known worldwide for his studies on 160m 
> propagation, and his tutorial on HF propagation in general, and 160m in 
> particular, is noteworthy:
> 
> http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/Radio/nm7m-hf-propagation-tutorial.pdf
> 
> I live on a steep hillside with a wide and very deep ravine running down 
> across my property, and in order to work a DXpedition to 3B9 (2003 or 
> 2004 or so) I ran a 2 element wire yagi across that ravine and it just 
> luckily pointed to 3B9.  I had to feed it with a few hundred feet of 
> RG-8X coax (thicker coax would have been too heavy) to a spot where I 
> could park my car, and although I used a 400 watt solid state amp I was 
> probably feeding only about half that to the antenna.  I easily worked 
> the 3B9 on 160m, though, and was the furthest west station to do so. 
> Most hams only heard the 3B9 for five or ten minute openings, but for 
> several days I could easily copy them for periods ranging from 30 to 55 
> minutes.  I posted my success here on TowerTalk, and NM7M sent me a post 
> telling me that he calculated that for that path vertical polarization 
> had an 11 dB advantage over horizontal polarization on 160m.
> 
> The gyro-frequency effect decreases significantly at higher frequencies, 
> but for 160m it seems to be pretty important ... at least for some 
> paths.  I've heard lots of hams claim that verticals rule on 160m, and I 
> suspect that it isn't only because putting up a suitably high horizontal 
> antenna is so difficult.
> 
> I guess my point is that maybe we shouldn't be dissuaded from putting up 
> a vertical antenna on 160m just because we have poor ground 
> conductivity.  Control the return loss in the near field as best we can 
> (lots of great comments here recently on how to do that) and hope the 
> gyro-frequency effect helps with the far field effects.
> 
> Caveat:  I don't think that the theoretical gyro-frequency advantage 
> holds true for all paths.  I think east-west paths are different than 
> north-south paths.
> 
> 73,
> Dave   AB7E
> 
> 
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