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Insider
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 3:11 pm: | 
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One of the local crowd was arguing that being directly on the water is paramount to being a dominating DX station, even if the beam is facing inland to talk West, in his case. He argues that his tech told him that water is the factor that basically makes or breaks a good CB station, be it DXing or local talk. According to his tech, CB is different than HAM, 10 meters. The big power used by CB stations works best when there's a lot of water around.
Does water make a huge difference, especially when talking DX, or is that just another one of the CBisms? I'm no rf engineer, but I tend to think that setting up a good antenna, taking into account the angle of radioation for the type of skip you want to talk and with as few obstructions around you as possible makes more difference than having a body of water on the back side of your beam. What do the experts say? |
Rattlesnakejake
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 6:48 pm: |
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water's good for am... |
Crafter
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 7:20 pm: |
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Yea, its a good radiator but works just as well on 10m also so he's taking what is gratifing to himself. If that was the case everyone would drive to water to talk DX. Dont get me wrong I did just that when I lived in montery I would drive to the wharf and drop a line for good ground and talk over to santa cruz like a local. But DX is that DX. Get a good antenna, or a dummy load and move to the coast. |
Mr_Rf
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 10:51 pm: |
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If you want the RF Engineers response then check out this webpage...you'll like it.
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/m3/
FYI...interesting fact, seems to me the gov't radio sites are usually found in the areas with better ground conductivity per this chart! So, for you lucky dogs that just happe to live in the areas with better numbers, Happy Dx'ing!
You see, the impurities in water can sometimes provide a consistant ground plane reference. (FYI..that's contaminated water...pure water "H20" doesn't conduct) Also, The key is to improve the ground conductivity which will lower the noise floor which improves the receiver, and can improve antenna pattern and tilt.
However, having said all this, being in or around water generally only raises the ego of the operator by making him/her think they have an advantage as usually t differences measured between water and typical earthen effects are similar.
Also, the temperature changes experienced around where massive bodies of water and land meet do sometime provide for improved RF conditions called "ducting" where the hot/cold and humidity changes form sort of a "duct" in the atmosphere that have unique properties that can trap RF signals and carry them for hundreds, even thousands of miles to somewhere where land and water again meet causing the same hot/cold humidity changes to drop the RF signals. However, this is usually seen in ham bands above 30 MHz.
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Pig040
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 9:41 am: |
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That map is the reason I have a drip irrigator right by my ground rod! |
707
| | Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 11:22 am: |
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I'd go with Mr. RF on this one. Regarding 11m being different than 10m, it would be difficult to find much of a difference unless you compare the lowest extreme 11m to the highest extreme 10m freqs. As for water, I've actually made my longest DX contacts running a station in NW Oklahoma, out on the dry plains, where the average water well depth is around 200ft and the ground conductivity low at best, running a small beam at 35ft. |
Insider
| | Posted on Friday, January 16, 2004 - 9:10 pm: |
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Good info. Thanks to all for responding... |
Kiwikid
| | Posted on Saturday, January 17, 2004 - 7:43 pm: |
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Hello Team,one other thing with a water enviroment station is that hopefully appart from water waves there is little to no terrain in the direction of intended travel to impeeed the signal take off of ground/skip waves also no or little localised noise apart from annoying High Energy Ignition powered watercraft.
73
Kiwi Kid |
123upmichigan
| | Posted on Saturday, January 17, 2004 - 10:59 pm: |
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well, water is the way. i have had 2 stations. all identical equipment set up 3 miles apart. the first one was in a swamp at my parents and the second was at my first house when i got out on my own. the second was dry sandy soil. as far as elevation they were about 40 feet diffrence. the better talking of the two was the swamp station where i had a ground right in the creek. when i moved it was like my ears have been closed. to equal my a-99 in the swamp with a hundred watts i had to get a moonraker 4 90 feet in the air with two hundred watts to talk just as far. know it sounds hard to beleive but i think i grew up in a "sweet spot" what do ya think? |
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