Put the horizontal antenna up high and it works with either low
conductivity or high conductivity soils.

Same for the vertical.

Low height is the h azard for
the horizontal antenna if you want DX.

Yes, but even high, they aren't always the best choice on the low
bands.
In a way, I think the same can apply to the verticals. Low height is a
hazard for those too, unless you have a load of radials...:/ MK

Dear MK (NM5K):

I do not understand. Why speculate? In the over forty years that I
have been involved with the prediction of HF propagation, huge progress has
transpired in the ease with which one may investigate the issues that seem
to be of interest.

Today, one may download and run a series of computer programs that will
provide statistically significant answers to your questions. The programs
have evolved over decades and are refined.
Go to:
http://elbert.its.bldrdoc.gov/hf.html

As Reg might say: ready to run.

Numbers tell the story. Enjoy.

73 Mac N8TT

--
J. Mc Laughlin; Michigan U.S.A.
Home:

J. Mc Laughlin wrote:
Dear MK (NM5K):

I do not understand. Why speculate? In the over forty years
that I
have been involved with the prediction of HF propagation, huge
progress has
transpired in the ease with which one may investigate the issues that
seem
to be of interest.

I'm not sure I understand. Why speculate about what? Verticals vs
dipoles?
Or do you mean propagation only? Or you talking about qround quality
per a
certain area?

Today, one may download and run a series of computer programs
that will
provide statistically significant answers to your questions. The
programs
have evolved over decades and are refined.
Go to:
http://elbert.its.bldrdoc.gov/hf.html

As Reg might say: ready to run.

Numbers tell the story. Enjoy.

Tell what story? I might try downloading them, but what is it I'm
trying to find out?
What are my questions? I'm not overly keen on downloading a potentially
large
program, I then have to install, and take up more room, without knowing
what it is
I want to do with it, or even what it does... You are leaving me in the
dark too
much as to what this program does...Even they don't give a real
description.. MK

On 1 Feb 2005 14:07:19 -0800, wrote:

What are my questions? I'm not overly keen on downloading a potentially
large
program, I then have to install, and take up more room, without knowing
what it is
I want to do with it, or even what it does... You are leaving me in the
dark too
much as to what this program does...Even they don't give a real
description.

Hi Mark,

What Mac is offering is a link to a propagation modeler that was
developed for the Voice of America engineers. This sucker is
complexity³ and by the trepidation offered in your response, you
probably would not like it very much. But that may be an over
reaching analysis in the domain of the psyche.

There are plenty of boxes to fill in, plenty of settings to establish,
and a host of targets to select. What they describe are your power,
your antenna, your path (which presumes you know your audience -
literally), their background noise level, the time of day, the height
of any ionospheric layer, the sunspot count. From this you get
probabilities of S+N/N at the receiver, fluctuation of signal level,
even issues of multipath and other interference.

What is the actual payoff is that it also paints a picture of the
characteristic of interest either in the form of a chart or on a map.
This makes for nice 24 hour MUF forecasts for your intended target (a
sub continental sized region on the globe) or actual signal levels, or
interference levels (and on and on and on....).

The software also allows you to tailor your antenna's characteristics.
I like to describe an impossible design with a 1° beam width and beam
height to then present me with a map of the world where it hits.
This, in a nutshell, pretty quickly dissolves arguments about the
value of any particular TOA. Why? Because even with this impossible
thin razor's edge of a lobe, when it leaps across the continent it
splashes down into a fairly large region. A standard monopole
radiation characteristic will illuminate continental wide swaths of
the globe with alternating layers of good reception and poor reception
like ripples across a spherical metallic sea. The link:
http://www.qsl.net/kb7qhc/propagation/index.htm
offers just such a treatment with 24 forecasts of a standard monopole
(one each hour in a day) in an animated GIF loop. It is interesting
to see the sun revolving around Seattle (Galileo had it all wrong as
science will prove). Please note the server at qsl.net is quite slow
to the point of downloading all 24 images to run the animation.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

If you'd like something simpler, I highly recommend W6ELProp, a free and
very capable propagation program. (Note that's W6EL, not W7EL.) Shel,
W6EL, created the DOS program MiniProp and sold it for many years. When
time came for the major job of rewriting the program for Windows, Shel
did it -- and generously made the program free, as W6ELProp. It doesn't
do the fancy graphics of the big government programs, but its
predictions are quite good, and it's very easy to use. I've used it and
its predecessor MiniProp for a long time.

You can get W6ELProp at http://www.qsl.net/w6elprop/.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

wrote:

Tell what story? I might try downloading them, but what is it I'm
trying to find out?
What are my questions? I'm not overly keen on downloading a potentially
large
program, I then have to install, and take up more room, without knowing
what it is
I want to do with it, or even what it does... You are leaving me in the
dark too
much as to what this program does...Even they don't give a real
description.. MK

Dear MK:
You speculated about the performance of some antennas. Performance
includes antenna gain distribution and ionospheric propagation. The
programs that I, and others, mentioned would provide you with meaningful
performance numbers. I thought that you might wish to know the performance
of the antennas you discussed over the paths mentioned (and other paths).
Such knowledge might reduce the uncertainty of the speculations. It is an
engineering sort of thing. Not all are enamored of changes in entropy.

Please disregard my suggestion. It was not matched to your desires.

Mac N8TT
--
J. Mc Laughlin; Michigan U.S.A.
Home:
wrote in message
oups.com...

J. Mc Laughlin wrote:
Dear MK (NM5K):

I do not understand. Why speculate? In the over forty years
that I
have been involved with the prediction of HF propagation, huge
progress has
transpired in the ease with which one may investigate the issues that
seem
to be of interest.

I'm not sure I understand. Why speculate about what? Verticals vs
dipoles?
Or do you mean propagation only? Or you talking about qround quality
per a
certain area?

Today, one may download and run a series of computer programs
that will
provide statistically significant answers to your questions. The
programs
have evolved over decades and are refined.
Go to:
http://elbert.its.bldrdoc.gov/hf.html

As Reg might say: ready to run.

Numbers tell the story. Enjoy.

Tell what story? I might try downloading them, but what is it I'm
trying to find out?
What are my questions? I'm not overly keen on downloading a potentially
large
program, I then have to install, and take up more room, without knowing
what it is
I want to do with it, or even what it does... You are leaving me in the
dark too
much as to what this program does...Even they don't give a real
description.. MK

J. Mc Laughlin wrote:
Dear MK:
You speculated about the performance of some antennas.
Performance
includes antenna gain distribution and ionospheric propagation. The
programs that I, and others, mentioned would provide you with
meaningful
performance numbers. I thought that you might wish to know the
performance
of the antennas you discussed over the paths mentioned (and other
paths).
Such knowledge might reduce the uncertainty of the speculations. It
is an
engineering sort of thing. Not all are enamored of changes in
entropy.

Please disregard my suggestion. It was not matched to your
desires.

If you say so...I just wanted to know what the program does.. I don't
have a lot
of room on my drive, and when they start talking about "install"
programs, ect,
it makes me think the program is pretty large. I don't think I really
"speculated"
about the antennas. I just described my results with them. I did
speculate as to
why I have to bump up the ground qualities in the modeling programs to
match my
real life results. But I think Richards theory about the elevated
performance
was about as good as any. I may try some of the programs later. I need
to get a
new drive..My present one is crammed full..I have to shuffle junk
around to make
room for big programs. My flight sim, and 1000's of old pictures I
store, hog all
my room...Not to mention a zillion zip files...I'm like a packrat when
it comes
to data....:/ Time for a new big drive...I rebuilt my puter last
summer, but
not the drive yet...I'm still on a puny 6.8 g. I need about a 100 g...
BTW...I'm not sure why my type is constantly messed up as far as the
lines, etc.
I'm using google, and I *hate* their post entry window...It doesn't
autowrap like
I'm used to, and I never know how to make it look normal...If you try
to let it
autowrap the lines, it just types off to the right forever...I never
had this
problem with the old google...If I try to match the width of the
previous post,
it still usually ends up all goofed up...Don't worry...It's not an
excess of wine
causing the problem. :/
MK