[IRCA] Shortish BOG's, a resistor and some HSFB fun thx to maxpreps

["Neil Kazaross" <neilkaz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've been using shortish // BOG's near the western edge of my land here in 
Barrington IL for a few weeks now. They aim about 355 degrees and the idea 
is to null the many pests to the E and W of me. These were unterminated and 
about 290 ft // 160 ft. I used phasing to knock down the many backend 
pests..ie Chicago stations, Indy, and further south etc. With this spacing 
differential, I can get good nulls on back end stuff for the upper half of 
the band without reducing the intended DX from northerly directions. 
However, DX from the intended direction is also reduced somewhat when I 
phase null a back end pest ..ie something like WSCR 670 since I suspect 
there's not enough phase difference between the front and back ends with 
only 130 ft difference in lengths. That's fine, since I want this antenna 
system to work well on the upper band, where I don't have an IBOCy disaster 
and where the BOG's have more narrow beamwidths, and where there's some 
number of northern MN,northern WI, and northern MI (UP) stations I still 
need.

So...Fri evening I tried terminating the end of the longer BOG, now about 
295 ft to ground thru a 270 ohm resistor. I had made measurements of back 
and front end signals without the ground termination, but since it was past 
dusk, I had to use mostly locals and there's nothing steady here at night 
above 1160. Back end low band signals were reduced, but intended direction 
signals like WTMJ 620, WCPT 850 were also reduced so I feared this wasn't 
giving me the intended effect. But, this is not all bad, since I no longer 
had to worry about some mixing products and harmonics from my brutal 
superlocals off the back end (WGN/WBBM and even WSCR)

As I tuned higher, I was pleasantly surprised to notice considerably less 
back end signals but fine DX from the intended northerly direction.
WMBD 1470 from Peoria has a brutal skip signal at night, and it was knocked 
down lots. Over to 1490 and I found WTIQ's HSFB somewhat under KQDS's nice 
oldies, and then KXRA came up with an ID during an HSFB break or pregame. 
Over to 1450 and WMIQ IDed with Iron Mountain HSFB. WSOO 1230 was atop with 
Redwings hockey. All this with no real need to use the phase wire above 1230 
as back stuff was nicely reduced. Over to 1290 and CFRW's oldies were nice 
and clean with almost no QRM and entertainment level at times.

The fun happened on 1340 as I heard the Blue Devils getting ready to play 
the Golden Bears. Some checking on maxpreps.com (super site) indicated that 
this had to be KRBT Eleveth MN for a new one, and when I went back outside 
they were in there with a gal giving some locals ads including one for an 
appliance store in Eleveth. At 426 miles, this just breaks the US distance 
record for logging them.

Rambling on , I just found my second groundrod that is along the center west 
end of my land and will now see how well the shorter BOG works with 
termination. It will be about 150 ft and if quite useful, can be used by 
quite a few guys here, as lots more have access to 150 ft than 300 ft.

73 KAZ Barrington IL 

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