Re: [IRCA] TA season, BOGs etc etc

["Neil Kazaross" <neilkaz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Your thoughts about Mauritania 783 and propagation to the Pacific NW are the 
same as mine. Also, I think there are times where Norway 1314 was being 
decently received in the NW, blasting as usual into NE but lousy here in IL 
likely due to southern edge of AU donut absorbtion. Off course, other times 
1314 has been nearly armchair on the DX setup and I can reasonably listen to 
it on my TRF. I think I am too close(13 miles) to WBBM to have a chance at 
783. I can tell there's a carrier sometimes in bad bad slop, but no chance 
for audio. Now up north in WI (93 miles) from WBBM, I have a decent 
het/carrier, and may be able to pull audio on the right night

I almost always have a 891 het on WLS noticable here about 45 miles NNW of 
their tx but that may commonly (not always) get absorbed at the higher 
latitude path to the Pac NW. They now have poor modulation level so audio 
isn't common. 621 Canaries often hets WTMJ and once in a while I can raise 
SS audio when WTMJ is phased.

I hope to be able to start the TA season here earlier this year, as almost 
any construction on my property will be completed by mid fall. I also will 
try a NE BOG (360 feet or so) in the back half of my property further away 
from the horrid powerline noise. As usual I will sing the praises of BOGs, 
and when I put down the TA BOG last January in my eastern field, 349 ft at 
42.2 degrees, even though much of the dial was often very noisy, I sometimes 
had more than 1 TA on some channels, and sometimes had 30-40 channels with 
at least audio traces and weak carriers detectable on most every other TA 
channel. This was in sharp contrast to using the Kiwa Loop or using my E-W 
BOGs off the back end (unterminated so as not to further reduce eastern 
signals).

If the back half of my property is more quiet, I suspect that I can do quite 
well on TA's this year. When I tried the other direction back there (towards 
TX,Mex ) in March/early April, it was considerably more quiet. To leave this 
proposed wire out permanently, I need to wait 'til Nov when we won't be 
cutting the grass anymore and when we won't be playing tennis, since it goes 
across my court.

I will also be able to put a BOG from my new driveway about 450 long and 
about 60 deg (right at Spain) but won't be able to leave it permanently, and 
it will be in the noisy area. However, I think I will find the 42 deg wire 
more useful as I have many Spaniards heard over the years (used to phase a 
430 mini-Bev at 50 deg vs a 650 foot mini Bev at 67.5 deg back when I had 
zero line noise about 6 to11 years ago. The 42 deg wire nulls easterly 
clears quite decently and especially on the high end so France 1557 doesn't 
suffer huge Disney 1560 slop. CINF Montreal at about 67.4 deg is lots 
stronger than similar distance low band NYC 50 KWers at about 91 deg to show 
an example of directivity even on low band for what is not a long antenna.

I believe Dennis mentioned wanting to run a 1000 to 2000 ft BOG. Now your 
mileage may vary based on ground underneath, but here in the midwest I have 
found that about 900 feet is about as long as I want a BCB BOG due to 
excessive ground losses which end up harming the pattern, filling in nulls, 
etc. I do plan a near parallel test of about 1000 to 1050 ft vs my usual 475 
footer (97 deg..WABC in daytimes prior toWBBM IBOC etc) BOG in Wisconsin, 
once I get some underbrush cleared. I suspect that 2000 feet could kick butt 
on longwave but if right on the ground could be poor for BCB.

I know that I can sound like a broken record and unfortunately not all of us 
live semi-rural on 5 acres so we all don't have enough room. But when I 
layed down my first BOG almost 5 years ago, my DXing life here changed for 
the much better. A 625 foot BOG (as close to on the ground (dirt and low cut 
grass) as I could get it) CLEARLY outperform a // 625 foot 8 ft high 
mini-Bev except on the extremely high end of BCB as far as directivity and 
station pulling ability. The mini-Bev had 10-15 dB more signal, but lots 
more QRM due to worse directivity. Now when one gets down to shorter wires 
like 350 feet, an elevated wire has tons of signal but isn't all that 
directive and has huge signals off the back end (I tested one about 4.5 ft 
high, straight as an arrow for 325 feet) while a BOG right on the ground, 
has fine directivity and is a much better DX antenna in any QTH with lots of 
QRMing stations.

73 KAZ Barrington IL
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nick Hall-Patch" <nhp@xxxxxxxx>
To: "Mailing list for the International Radio Club of America" 
<irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 11:24 PM
Subject: [IRCA] TA season


> At 18:51 04/08/2006, you wrote:
>>Croatia 1134 is strong here in Maryland, and many time was stronger
>>than Norway 1314.  Also, Saudi arabia 1521 is strong at times.
>>Mauritania 783 is also loud, when conditions are favorable
>
> Maybe we'll have a chance on Mauritania on the west coast this season
> if things get really geomagnetically quiet.   Paradoxically, being
> further south, it seems harder to hear here than the northern
> Europeans, but I guess the Europeans skip through the auroral "donut
> hole" , or are ducted somehow, while west Africans get absorbed by
> the southern edges of the auroral zone.   In the winter of 1996, a
> carrier on 783 was logged here just before the end of that quiet
> period around Christmas, but never since.  Californians might have a
> better chance at it...
>
> best wishes,
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
> ****************************************************************************
> Nick Hall-Patch
> Victoria, B.C.
> Canada
>
> ****************************************************************************
>
> 

_______________________________________________
IRCA mailing list
IRCA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://arizona.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/irca

Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers

For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org

To Post a message: irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx