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talking local on 20 and 40 meters..

My mistake. I thought this was a General Ham Discussion thread.

Primal instincts have taken over. Darwin would get a good laugh at the reverting back to 11 meter ways.
 
I have a question.
I know the OP asked about 20m and 40m comms, but my curiosity goes to 80m in town, as close as a mile apart, and out to 20 miles distance. We do this easily and frequently. And, to my knowledge, everyone is using horizontal wires or beams of some sort none of them exceeding a 1/4^ high. My loop is only 30' up.
 
Rick330man said:
My mistake. I thought this was a General Ham Discussion thread.

Primal instincts have taken over. Darwin would get a good laugh at the reverting back to 11 meter ways.
Click to expand...

Are you just stopping in to stir the pot like my people used to do on ch 19? The 11 meter blood is strong in you.
 
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543_Dallas said:
Are you just stopping in to stir the pot like my people used to do on ch 19? The 11 meter blood is strong in you.
Click to expand...

Wiser people than I have posted on this thread. I'm taking the time to agree with those who've made the point essentially that someone ought to be able to express an opinion without resorting to pot shots or being on the receiving end of one.

On a forum like this, where participants promote civility extending that courtesy to one another is the least we can do. The fact that we generally do has a lot to do with why folks enjoy WorldwideDx. When we don't, it all deteriorates to something akin to the garbage most of you hear on 11 meters. Fortunately, we don't get that down here.

A little humor doesn't hurt either.
 
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Having used low antennas most of my radio career, I take most of this 'NVIS' stuff as a justification for a particular antenna or as an excuse.
When talking about antenna height you don't 'think' in feet or yards, you think in terms of wave length at the frequency in question. Then you can convert those wave length numbers to feet, etc.
Lower frequencies tend to 'bend' a bit when they hit the various atmospheric 'layers'. The higher frequencies (VHF/UHF) don't do that 'bending', they just go straight through those 'layers', and that's where that 'line of sight' comes in. (confused yet?)
Oh well, lots of reasons why you get various 'ranges' on a band, propagation being the biggy.
Paul
 
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I've been switching to the CB ground plane for reception on 75 meters when the noise is high. The signals are lower but sometimes it really improves the signal to noise ratio. The guys I'm talking to are 30 to 250 miles out.
 
I know what you mean. I have an 80m loop, a end fed wire ~260' long, a 6m vertical, and a CB EFHW that I switch around to listen for better r/n ratio. It helps sometimes.
 
On 75/80/160m it is hardly ever about the signal but rather the signal/noise ratio. I pretty much always turn my RX preamp OFF on those bands to improve the receivers dynamic range. Often an antenna that provides a lower signal will in fact provide a much better signal/noise ratio.
 
I've noticed that. No preamp on the low bands unless I want to zone out on white hiss. SSSSSSSSSHHHHHSSSSHHHHSSSSHHHHHHH....
Probably why the feds allowed the hams to use those frequencies. ... laughing themselves into a stupor.
 
HomerBB said:
I've noticed that. No preamp on the low bands unless I want to zone out on white hiss. SSSSSSSSSHHHHHSSSSHHHHSSSSHHHHHHH....
Probably why the feds allowed the hams to use those frequencies. ... laughing themselves into a stupor.
Click to expand...


On those bands the limiting factor tends to be mostly atmospheric noise like thunderstorms etc or from man-made noise sources. On 80/160m it is routine to hear static crashes from lightning storms hundreds or even thousands of miles away.
 
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