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Date: | Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:58:08 -0500 |
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I must admit, I haven't been following this thread, however I'd like to put
my two cents in here as well. My own experience is that antenna height is
more critical for frequencies above 50 megahertz than for say the HF bands.
I can remember using a Mini-Quad at about ten feet, actually going out in to
the backyard in order to turn the antenna which was mounted on the corner of
a deck and working Europe on 15 and 20 meters. Of course when I was using an
ATB34 at about 45 feet, of course the signal strength was much better and I
was able to hear and work many more countries. On frequencies above 50 MHZ
the use of directional antennas sometimes becomes obnoxious when working
distant repeaters because of the possibility of bringing up three or four at
the same time. Sometimes it can't be helped. I remember over Thanksgiving
one year, might have been 1984 or 1987 when two meters was open from the
midwest all the way to Alaska. I worked a mountain-top repeater in West
Virginia with an HT. Believe me, that was phenomenal. Generally though, if
you're working distant stations above 50 MHZ you need a directional antenna,
because even if you are say on an HT, it is amazing what a building between
you and the repeater can do to a signal, and this becomes much more evident
on 440 megahertz than 2 meters and if you['re working in the 1,200 megahertz
band you just about need to be pointing right at each other in order to hear
the other station, that's what I've been told any way. By the way, if you're
using a Ringo Ranger at about 20 or 25 feet, that's plenty high enough. You
don't want to be interfering with stations 50-60 miles away when it's more
than 40 feet off the ground, or just reduce your output power, because if
your antenna is 40 or more feet up you won't need more than probably five
watts to be heard locally.
Fred Olver N9BSO
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