I think that I'm finally back on 160M for the season! Conflicts have
prevented much operation prior to this. Plus, my receive antenna's
are finally taking form...
My Beverages to the east consist of three parallel (but stagger fed)
Beverages at a 56º azimuth and two stagger fed parallel Beverages at
120º azimuth. They will permit the two arrays to have a lobe center
adjustable from 35 - 150º azimuth with the -3 dB points at these
extreme settings of 17 & 171º.
Two of the 56º Beverages are the same size (different azimuth) as last
year: 268.5 meters long, spaced 2 meters, stagger fed with #2 starting
1/4 wavelength towards Europe. The added parallel Beverage #3 is
328 meters long and spaced 46 meters from Beverage #2 (the maximum
spacing without going through a wooded area). #3 is also stagger fed.
I'm still finishing my RF combiner circuit for the three Beverages
(two modified MFJ-1026's). Right now just two can be combined
(either #1 & 2 or #2 & #3). I'm using this to compare narrow vs.
wider spaced Beverages, plus the changes in using the different
length Beverages by themselves. The preliminary results are:
Two Beverages are almost always better than one (sometimes requiring
different phasing for optimum performance).
The #1 & 2 vs #2 & #3 Beverage race is a close call so far. They
both always help with the better pair changing.
I reconfirmed the 1026's nulling ability on some high frequency
AM broadcasts. A typical null was taking a 20 dB over S9 station
down to S0 or to the level of the next strongest station on the
frequency. Nulling skywave isn't so dramatic, but single hop stations
can still generally be well nulled.
I've been at the wrong place at the right time for A61AJ. I was
never home from work on Monday - Friday before 0130z and the rare
times there earlier weren't the good ones. 239 was the best copy
that I ever had...
The CQWWCW DX contest was a top band yawner due to disturbed
conditions. The band never opened good to Europe and was totally
gone after 0515z on both days from Nebraska (you know things are
bad when you have trouble with OT9T and 9G5AA sounds like he has
polar flutter).
But, maybe the band was reborn today. Listening around 0400z; DF2PY,
F5IN, and IV3PRK had good signals. UX0ZZ peaked at 559 around 0435z.
I thought that the band was going to die after 0515 again but appeared
to bounce back with the following stations worked between 0601 and
0703z: OK1AWZ, S54E, S59NMQ, SM6MCW, ON4WW (twice), EA8EA and ending
with F6HAY at 0704z...
I'm not sure if it's my receive antenna doing better or the very
dry situation here knocking down the conductivity, but I copied most
stations better than they were copying me (never could get UX0ZZ to
come back to me).
Too long of a report, but many things happening... Hopefully I'll
be able to report another couple of dB improvement in receive when
the three parallel Beverages all work together.
73, Bill K0HA
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