All HF relay systems were horizontally polarized.....

I wonder about the time of day and freq? I'd almost bet many were in
the daytime,
and using fairly high frequencies as far as HF. IE: 31,25,19 m, etc...
Seems the choice was as much a receiving/noise consideration rather
than absolute
signal strength.
I think the choice is much more complex than any theoretical gains seen
in modeling,
ect. In the daytime, I don't think it really matters much. So in that
case, it
would probably make sense to use horizontal to reduce local noise
pickup. That
would improve the receive s/n. As far as transmit strength, probably
not a whole
lot of difference either way.
But at night, it seems to be a different ballgame. I think the
differences in
propagation skew things towards the vertical on the low bands at night.

The farther the path, the better the advantage.
It could be stated that most horizontal wire antennas are lower to the
ground in
terms of wavelength on those bands. This is true. But you still have
cases where
people have tried the high antennas on the low bands, and still see the
verticals
usually win on long paths.
I've never tried it, but any interested could model my 36 ft high
dipole, and then
model my 10 ft center loaded mobile whip, on a ford truck.
I'd almost bet the dipole creams the mobile antenna in the model at low
angles
as far as the gain numbers shown.
But I know in the real world, that mobile beats the 36 ft high dipole
from Houston
to Jacksonville Fla at 2 AM. Yes, even I was surprised the first time I
saw it.
But I tried it over, and over again, and it was not a fluke of nature.
If you could have two 160/80/40 m antennas at 1 wave up, both with the
same exact
gain, IE: one a 1/2 wave vertical with any radials needed to equal the
ground loss
of a horizontal dipole, I'd bet money the vertical would win on long
paths 95% of
the time. It's not just a pure "gain" thing.... I think even verticals
with less gain
will win over the dipoles once the path becomes long enough. Note my
mobile...
I know for a fact from real life, if you are going to run a dipole, and
expect to
equal my 36 ft high ground plane, you better plant that puppy *WAY*
high, or you won't
have a chance. I'm talking over a 1/2 wave up. More like a full wave,
and even then
you might lose, once the path gets to about 4k or so...
BTW, these days in Houston, local noise has just as good a chance being
horizontal
as vertical...Most is powerline noise...So with my vertical, I never
really noticed
any extra noise. The s/n ratio was always better on the vertical, for
long haul.
IE: if the noise comes up 1 s unit, but the desired signal 2 s units,
the noise
is a non factor...Many times I saw no extra noise on the vertical.
MK

Mark, NM5K has raised some interesting questions. Time of day and
frequewncy?

We operated almost around the clock with both broadcasting and program
relay. For broadcast, the schedules are based on propagation predictions
and must be published far in advance. The schedule must be followed no
matter how propagation actually turns out. The best likely frequency is
picked for the path. Also scheduled is something in the next lower
frequency band and something in the next higher frequency band. For
program relay, you can make unscheduled frequency adjustments at any
time it is convenient to do so.

Triple space diversity was the method we mostly used. (3) separate
receiving antennas, spaced about 10 wavelengths apart laterally at
40-meters (400 meters) were used to receive all relayed programs. Each
antenna fed a multicoupler so that receivers could be connected without
interaction.

The three receivers tuned to a particular program (not necessarily the
same frequency) had their outputs fed to a single TDR combiner (Crosby
or Pioneer). The combiner accepted the best output of the three
receivers and rejected the other two. An operator checked the reception
regularly to see if the signal could be improved by selection of either
the upper or lower sideband, or other means.

The height of the antennas was about 20 meters. High enough for
single-hop propagation over the path at midday on the 20-meter band. We
had fixed height so it had to serve from 5 MHz to 18 MHz at all hours.
For relay, we adjusted frequencies almost 24-hours to pick those
frequencies which were working best at the time and might also be
transmitting in the next higher and/or lower band during changing
conditions For relay we used 3 to 5 KW. For broadcast we used 50 KW and
100 KW. Antennas had about 15 dBd gain on both relay path ends. For
broadcast we used 15 dBd gain on the transmitter. The receiver may have
had a wet noodle for an antenna. If it was good enough for the jammers
it was probably good enough to receive us too.

Mark also wrote:
"I`d bet money the vertical would win on the long paths 95% of the
time."

The vertical has its null directly overhead, and it has its maximum
radiation at low vertical angles from the horizontal. A hazard for the
vertical is low uncorrected soil conductivity benearh the antenna.

Put the horizontal antenna up high and it works with either low
conductivity or high conductivity soils. Low height is the hazard for
the horizontal antenna if you want DX.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

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