By the light of the silvery Moon

With the weekend looming, and my friend, Ian Williams, VK3MO running his long path WSPR transmissions, I decided to have a very late evening's listen to 14MHz long path from the coast.

Conveniently, the tide was a neap, with only a couple of metres' variation in height between high and low water - meaning no trouble in keeping the equipment close to the water, yet dry!  Even the wind was almost calm.

Shortly after setting up at the beach, 20UT, ready for a 4-hour RX session.

 

I had my vertical delta loop running back home, but the software, very unusually, crashed after a couple of hours.  But there were plenty of other UK stations to compare with.

If we look at Proppy's signal strength output for what's going on at 0 UT, then we can see Ian's energy is focused, for our western European purposes, at the antipodean point, out in the tropical mid-Atlantic. Consequently, it appears that this is the area that my coastal antenna is seeing throughout the listening period, not least because the signal, just like the prediction for this antipodean point, remains quite stable throughout - very different from morning long path reception earlier in the year:

Predicted signal strength distribution VK3QN, but only with very approximate input values - there is no model that accommodates a 12-element 14MHz array very well!

Now, I do admit to taking great pleasure in torpedoeing those few American cowboys who vote for Trump and troll the internet, saying my results for coastal radio are 'BS'.  

The latest 'BS' comment was about my fully-documented evidence of a 10-14dB typical advantage from the coast, relative to a slightly inland, identical antenna. 

The Moon and Jupiter drift together, low along the southern sea horizon (23:15UT)

 

So I will greatly enjoy this moment again, as I present the results for last night's reception of VK3QN for my (COAST/RX) station, as compared with the few other UK stations also hearing him (a Yagi operator has been omitted, for obvious reasons, although he was a median 16dB weaker in RX anyway (beam direction NW, so away from the peak antipodean source)).

I wonder what Cowboy Troll would say about a 20dB+ advantage seen in this case?  Remember, the data is available for all to examine for yourselves at WSPRnet - no need to believe anything I say at all. 

Finally, here's the comparison of VK3QN with VK3MO heard at the beach.  Low angle optimisation gives a small advantage to QN, which is in reality a significantly larger advantage, given that QN is a 12-element array, whilst MO is 20 elements.