/"Band open to CA from NM, but you need the IA station you can't hear.
Both of you should point west for best copy."/
I find this true, especially trying to work ND and SD, the next states
west of MN. At least 95% of the time their signal is stronger if I
'bounce' my signal off the electronic curtain to the east of me. The
signals usually drop into the noise if I turn my beam west, in their
direction. The other 5% of the time, the signal might be the same
strength, but the ambient noise floor comes up when pointing to the
west, making the copy more difficult. Both of these states have been WAS
hold-outs on 15 and 20 meters for me, although I logged 3 out of 4 needs
this past weekend.
73 de Bob - KØRC in MN
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On 11/19/2013 4:10 PM, Barry wrote:
In my empiric experience, backscatter, like any scatter, works best
with power and high antennas pointed in the direction that the band is
open.
For example, how do you work EU on 10m when the band is closed to EU,
but open to AF? Point your antenna at AF.
Band open to CA from NM, but you need the IA station you can't hear.
Both of you should point west for best copy.
Barry W2UP
On 11/19/2013 13:48, Steve London wrote:
Related to this topic are these questions...
What does it take to have a big backscatter signal on the high bands
? Azimuth diversity (i.e. multiple antennas pointing in different
directions) ? Take-off angle diversity ? Is the optimum take-off
angle for backscatter the same as the optimum take-off angle for
1-hop, non-backscatter ? I don't think I have ever seen empirical
studies or models that address this.
I ask these questions, as it comes right on the heels of my SS Phone
effort. For a number of reasons, I did single-10. I know, no such
category in SS. It was fun and made for a lively Sunday. About 1160
QSO's and 80 mults. Missed IA, NE, OK - all in that backscatter range
from here in NM.
73,
Steve, N2IC
On 11/19/2013 10:15 AM, Tim Shoppa wrote:
Hans, I feel in the same situation on the high bands at least. I can
work
CA over and over again on 10M but what's the fun in that? On sweeps
this
isn't a great loss because it's once per contest, but in a once per
band
contest like NAQP I end up with decidedly few multipliers on 10M.
I built some low dipoles and vees, which according the models had
more high
angle radiation. But in actual tests, I find they are uniformly down
6-10dB
no matter what the distance compared to my high wire.
I think the only solution to picking up more mults on the high bands is
more gain, but that comes with the cost of narrower beamwidth. I
have heard
some of the top-notch midwest contest stations in domestic tests: They
either have multiple transmit antennas, or some kind of easily
switchable
array, because I hear them cycling through directions on each CQ and
then
when I call them they go "loud" in my direction. I do something
similar but
receive-only with my K9AY loop in a 160 test, because I use
foot-switches
to pick the direction, and the nulls are so deep that when I'm
listening SE
that a loud New England station just isn't there, that I routinely
cycle
direction after each CQ.
Tim N3QE.
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