80m - And The Mystery of WSPRing There

You know how it goes.  You look out the window and wonder about life, the universe - and antennas!

I've never really tried anything below 40m, and I rarely go even there.  My life on 40m got a lot nicer when I installed a half delta loop, fed against what is admittedly excellent ground (being on top of a mineral deposit).  It's been working quite nicely on PSK and WSPR, and I can even hear VK clearly now that the vertical, low angle loop gives a quiet band.

I vacantly pressed the ATU button on my TS480, and surprisingly, it found a very good match on 80m in no time at all.  I decided to have a go at WSPR, see what would happen.

I was rather amazed to find my 5W was getting out to really very respectable distances - certainly on a par with the very few others operating this far down the bands.  My very first 80m contact was F1JRD/3, putting him at about 725 miles from me. 

But why so few on 80m?  Tonight, there's only a single station in the US on WSPR.  Maybe they are like me, thinking the waves are so darned big that it's just out the question to get a sensible antenna up.  Well, my half loop is pretty small, and is only 6m tall at one end.  An inverted L is pretty simple, too.  So there's really nothing other than preconception standing between most people and experimenting on 80m.

So there we are.  I learned that a half loop for 40m can operate pretty well on 80m, too - at least for WSPR.  We'll see what other modes bring in...