On Fri, 2 Jan 2004 23:58:37 -0600 (CST),
(Richard Harrison) wrote:

Mark Keith wrote:
"For DX transmitting on the lower bands, vertical polarization is the
best way to go."

In some cases. If that were always the case, why do commercial shortwave
stations all use horizontal polarization for both point-to-point service
and broadcasting?

Again this HF advice to an MF enquiry. The two, propagationally are
as different as bananas and apples.

In his book, "Radio Antenna Engineering", Ed Laport says:

"The earliest high-frequency beam antennas used vertical polarization,

This begs the historical perspective that the meaning of High
Frequency has not been constant. Laport's statement belies this era
he quotes who characterized High Frequency as anything above 500 KHz
and often characterized the shortwave frequencies as Ultra High
Frequencies.

The "earliest high frequency antennas" were in fact BCB. And guess
what, they are still Vertical antennas!

but subsequent evolution has caused the almost universal use of
horizontal polarization.

The subsequent evolution is explicitly shortwave. This validates your
experience but says nothing of the problem at hand in the 160M band,
which by example of a few KHz away is dominated by BCB verticals
almost to the point of saturation.



73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC