Bear in mind that if you want to work Europe, there are loads of wide
Beacons down the bottom of the band. These work like the old HiFix Beacons
(so are quite wide), and are located in the Baltic and used by Fishing
Trawlers for navigation. They pretty much wipe out 1800 to 1815 kHz over
here, only strong stations can be heard over them. (but they do sometimes
turn them off)
SO . . . I would suggest a centre frequency of around 1825 kHz.
Here in England we used to have Coast Stations all around the coastline, to
provide communication and Phone Patch to ships at sea. Although the Ships
transmitted above 2182 kHz, the Coast Stations all transmitted within Top
Band. (that's why we had a low power limit of 10 watts input, so we didn't
interfere with them).
They nearly all had Quarter Wave verticals, right next to the sea, and
running just 1kW they were big signals !
Well, about 15 years ago most of them shut down . . . and the local one to
me, Cullercoats Radio, had a big tower and a small building right next to
the beach. The whole lot was for sale . . . wish I had had the money to but
it, would have been fantastic for Top Band ! (whoever bought it took down
the tower, of course)
73 Roger G3YRO
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