On Wed, 08 Jun 2005 02:17:33 GMT, "Jim Hampton" wrote:


Hello, Vinnie

Try and remember that 10 and 11 meters are not a whole lot different for
local contacts than 6 or 2 meters. Unless you have an antenna mounted
*high*, don't expect extended local communications.

At a 20 watt level, you won't be lighting up the sky, so to speak, to be
able to use tropospheric scatter to extend the range, so you can expect
about a 10 mile range if your antenna is mounted 50 feet up. Then you will
get little, if any coverage, until you are out hundreds or thousands of
miles. Then, you start getting coverage due to reflection from either the F
layer or sporadic E. The area in between is your "skip" zone. This is why
you can work a distant station and many locals either cannot hear you or
receive you weakly.

An amp will allow you to take advantage of tropopheric scatter. This is
very similar to the big searchlights which you can see the beam from for
many miles although you can't see the lamp itself. This can give you
coverage for hundreds of miles.

Judicious choice of operating frequency can allow you to work all kinds of
distances with relatively low power. I broke into a cw net in the South
(Carolinas) one time running but milliwatts. That was on 80 meters. At
lower frequencies, you can take advantage of the E or F layers to get
reflection to other areas closer to you than higher frequencies. Generally,
frequencies under perhaps 10 MHz will do well at night and frequencies from
perhaps 6 to 18 MHz will do well during the day. Once we get good sunspots
going, frequencies up to 30 MHz will do well during the day.


73 from Rochester, NY
Jim


I am doing much better with locals than I was before. I am just surprised at the
DX I am getting with little power.

Vinnie S.