| Author |
Message |
    
Walterb
Junior Member
Username: Walterb
Post Number: 20
Registered: 12-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 - 12:49 pm: | 
|
The best luck I have ever had for long range ground wave contacts have come from having my antennas close to the ground, my thoughts on this is because the signal will always come over the noise in all cases. And any of the newer radio have a lot of gain in them, so a good antenna that is resonant 1.1 SWR where you want to talk has given me the best results. On base antennas I also have found the same results to be true for me. You can always turn up the volume if there is little or no background noise and pull out that week station, the higher the antenna the more atmospheric noise I pull in and the harder it is to hear those week stations. There are some antenna designs that don't have a lot of gain but work very well because they have great ears. Take a 1/2 wave vertical dipole like a Big Stick its an all vertical antenna, put it over water like on a boat you will double or triple its range because of the ground plane under the antenna. Take a MACO 5/8 ground plane the first thing again, first thing radio operators say how quite they are compared to there vertical that it replaced, but if you drop the vertical down and have a good ground plane under it, it will be working at full potential. Some food for thought, my 30+ years of thinking and testing different antennas.......walterb |
Bruce
Senior Member
Username: Bruce
Post Number: 4680
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - 12:00 pm: |
|
TRUE about new radios they have a LOT of gain. One must remember back in the days of tubes most basic radios had a RF stage a MIXER and 2 IF amps at 1759, 1650 or 455khz. A pentode tube at 27 mhz was good for 20-30 db of gain SO you had about 100 DB of gain before you hit the detector and receivers go to about -107 DBM or 1 UV.
Today with PLL and NB,ANL and DSP and a single IC chip good for 60 DB of gain even the CHEAP sets are good down to as little as 1/2 UV and with far better noise reduction.
Also lets not forget those niffty little Crystal filters hunderds of times better than rows of IF K-Trans.... ONE channel away -40 DB or more.
As for antennas GOSH ..... you could write a book on just how many ways to mount then or use them.....
On 6 since 66
|
|
