Just a little more info regarding the 160 meter experiment that I mentioned
which is now 11 months old, and quickly approaching 1 year. The station in
South America that I'm experimenting with is my good friend LU5OM, and his
TX antenna is currently a 64 foot tall top loaded vertical mounted very
close to his tower that now supports a HEX beam.
Just FYI,
Don (wd8dsb)
On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 8:30 AM, Don Kirk <wd8dsb@gmail.com> wrote:
> Guy (K2AV) said "Methinks hamdom underestimates 160 propagation in the
> summertime.", and I totally agree with him.
>
> For the past 11 months I have been running a daily early morning
> experiment on 160 meters CW trying to copy a specific station in South
> America running 500 watts (4700 mile path, 160 degree bearing from my
> location), and I'm able to copy him more than approximately 95% of the days
> which I would have previously said was impossible (copy meaning I can hear
> him send CQ and his call sign). My RX antenna is just a small pennant
> (51.6% the size of a full size pennant) using one W7IUV preamp, an old
> Kenwood TS-180s with 500 Hz filter and a 200 Hz hi-per mite active audio
> filter. A few times we have checked to see if sunrise enhancement would
> help, but have noticed very little if any sunrise enhancement improvement.
>
> There are very rare days where propagation is exceptional (like 12 dB
> increased signal level compared with a normal day), and all other days
> signals are just above my noise floor to 6 dB above my noise floor (noise
> floor not including static crashes from thunder storms). During my summer
> months the signal level is much less than the static crash peaks, but still
> able to copy nonetheless.
>
> As I said, this is something I would have never thought possible before
> investing so much test time.
>
> Just FYI,
> Don (wd8dsb)
>
>
>
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