Richard Harrison wrote:

Richard Clark wrote:
"Salt water is miserable as a conductor, .....

I praise the god of conductivity for the ocean`s behavior as a beniign
enabler of medium wave.....

Great info again Richard,
I recall during my early days in the Navy of
being able to listen to AM radio stations from Victoria B.C. all the way to
Hawaii. I always attributed it to the salt medium, but never really knew
enough about antennas and propagation other than to tell myself that salt
water was a better conductor.

When you think in terms of 'salt water because of its
conductivity (many times that of the best soils)' and then show the differences
in terms of Db attenuation it all makes sense.

This applies in many areas of discussion on this newsgroup. One worries
about ideal height above ground, transmission line losses, radiation pattern, etc,.
whereas the main objective is to get a signal out in the ether one way or
another, and damn the technical naysayers, full speed ahead.

Even with a limited knowledge of antennas and propagation, which thanks
to the knowledge gained on this newsgroup, I have always managed to get a signal
out of the shack and into the air without regard to the warnings of the pundits,
and thoroughly enjoyed making contacts -- many DX -- blissfully unaware of
how effective or efficient my antenna system may have been!

It frequently troubles me that when a novice asks a simple question
about antennas they are often distracted and possibly prevented from trying
something because of theoretical albeit often practical arguments against.
If you don't get the wire out there, you don't get the signals out either.
60db attenuation still beats infinity, and on a clear day you can hear
forever!

By golly, maybe I should rethink salting the back 40! :-)

Irv VE6BP


--
--------------------------------------
Diagnosed Type II Diabetes March 5 2001
Beating it with diet and exercise!
297/215/210 (to be revised lower)
58"/43"(!)/44" (already lower too!)
--------------------------------------
Visit my HomePage at http://members.shaw.ca/finkirv/
Visit my Baby Sofia website at http://members.shaw.ca/finkirv4/
Visit my OLDTIMERS website at http://members.shaw.ca/finkirv5/
--------------------
Irv Finkleman,
Grampa/Ex-Navy/Old Fart/Ham Radio VE6BP
Calgary, Alberta, Canada