{"id":4621,"date":"2010-02-21T10:48:07","date_gmt":"2010-02-21T16:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/?p=4621"},"modified":"2010-02-23T11:09:50","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T17:09:50","slug":"160-meter-contest-here-we-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/?p=4621","title":{"rendered":"160 Meter Contest, Here We Come!"},"content":{"rendered":"
There may be some of you who’ve never operated on 160 meters.<\/strong> The upcoming CQ WW 160 Meter\u00a0SSB contest (Feb. 26 – 28th)\u00a0is a great chance to get your feet wet. Usually operating on 160 meters requires a great deal of real estate to run an antenna. Sure, you can use a smaller antenna with a tuner but you sacrifice signal efficiency for the sake of keeping your rig happy by “load matching”. <\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Will you make contacts? Yes! <\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Will you make a ton of contacts? No! <\/span><\/div>\n
\n
The only good way is to use a full size antenna.\u00a0It’s simple physics. I don’t care what mis-information you <\/span>might have\u00a0read or been told or what “miracle” antenna companies\u00a0might claim.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
The length of a 160 meter dipole is about 260 feet long!<\/strong> That’s a lengthy antenna. You could make a full size loop antenna,\u00a0like I have at home,\u00a0which works nice. You could also make a 1\/4 wave vertical with 1\/4 wave radials at the base. The problem with using a vertical is that it also tends to pickup man-made electrical noise. So, why not take that vertical out of the urban area and into the rural areas of Texas?<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
That is what we’ll be doing when we drive out 100 miles to Choke Canyon State Park<\/strong>\u00a0and run a balloon launched 1\/2 wave vertical antenna. Less noise out in the “sticks”! This is going to be an interesting experiment, but that’s what the “Bexar Operators Group” does. <\/span><\/div>\n
    \n
  • So, we have the gear. <\/span><\/li>\n
  • We have the place reserved. <\/span><\/li>\n
  • We have the antenna. <\/span><\/li>\n
  • But, we’re not quite finished. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
    \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
    Propagation on 160 meters is a critical matter of time. Due to “D layer” signal absorption, 160 meters is what’s known as a “night time band”. <\/span><\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
    Upon consulting with the “DX Central” (W and K\u00a0search) postings on the internet, the best times to operate would be from around 0200 UTC until about 1000 UTC<\/strong>, in other words about an hour after the sun sets until about an hour before the sun rises. <\/span><\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
    So, our plan of attack is to get to the park in the early afternoon<\/strong>, which will give us plenty of time to set up, test the equipment\u00a0and fly the antenna then wait until the band “opens” after sunset. <\/span><\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
    Wish us luck! Listen for W5BOG on 160!<\/span><\/div>\n
    Bob W2IK \/ W5BOG<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There may be some of you who’ve never operated on 160 meters. The upcoming CQ WW 160 Meter\u00a0SSB contest (Feb. 26 – 28th)\u00a0is a great chance to get your feet wet. Usually operating on 160 meters requires a great deal of real estate to run an antenna. Sure, you can use a smaller antenna with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,21,140,4,2],"tags":[538],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4621"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4625,"href":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621\/revisions\/4625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sanantoniohams.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}