Every time I come home from a session at the coast - this time at Llanbadrig (St. Patrick's) Church - I remember (and laugh with derision) the old saying that 'a vertical antenna is just something that radiates equally poorly in all directions'.
Of course, this was always ignorant rubbish. At the coast, a vertical antenna exhibits directionality, because the sea is enhancing signals from its direction, whilst signals from the rear are, in effect, 'attenuated'. Not that a vertical is a poor performer away from the coast, either, you understand.
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| Llanbadrig Church, established 440AD - a location the current Dalai Lama once called "the most peaceful place on Earth". |
In any case, this afternoon brought solid 17m QSOs from as far as Japan (JA4NIJ, -17dB report for me) and Texas (K9MK, -06dB report for me). Not bad for 6W output!
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| 17m vertical at Llanbadrig Church (IO73sk) My son doesn't much like radio! |
As usual, I finished the outing with a brief session of 1W WSPR. Except for OZ7IT, KA7OEI-1 was hearing no station other than mine outside the US. On a power-normalised basis, my signal was 6dB stronger than OZ7IT (my 1W giving -25dB against OZ7IT's equivalent -31dB (-26dB as received.))
As for receiving at the coast, the DX station, AC0MO, at 6907km, was heard at a steady -28dB, but not anywhere else in the world outside the US (and no further within the US than 2146km). Pretty amazing stuff!
2 comments:
Indeed amazing John. Something I really want to do in the future again. I've been portable near the water long time ago taking part in a fieldday and it didn't occur to me that the difference with my home situation would be that huge. See:
https://pe4bas.blogspot.com/2015/09/iaru-ssb-fieldday-pe4bas.html
Already 5 years ago, wow time goes fast. When I read my own article it seems the signals were huge. You can see it in the video as well. I was transmitting with less as 5W. Actually this was on top of the dyke at the harbour. I really should get near the sea to have a better effect and more gain I think... this was before FT8 by the way ;-) As a matter of fact I won my section in that fieldday if I remember well. But got such a ugly certificate for it that I really don't want to publish it. 73, Bas
Ah! I enjoyed that blogpost and seeing a little of the Netherlands. Yes, for sure, the best effect is if you can get a clear sea horizon, no buildings or anything in front. Not always easy, and in fact in a car, it's very difficult on Anglesey. But a short walk brings much more possibilities. The way I imagine it is that the sea reflects radio as it reflects light. So if you can't see the sea, or much of it, then there will be few or no reflections.
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