On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 11:32:05 -0800, Roy Lewallen
wrote:


A fellow could come to the conclusion that "this ain't exactly
easy". HA!

It isn't.

The best antenna for transmitting is the one which produces the loudest
signal at the other station. The best antenna for receiving is the one
which produces the best signal/noise ratio at your station. The two are
often different, because they're determined by different antenna
characteristics. So for starters, you can have two "best" antennas for
each station you want to contact, and that "best" will vary with the
skip elevation angle, local noise level, and directions and angles the
noise is coming from.


Just was I was thinking when I prompted the "works" definition.

I should not be surprised if many observations indicate the better
antenna for tx is different from the better antenna for rx. I am not
trying to question reciprocity, but there are several factors, ambient
noise at the rx site probably being the most significant.

Key thing is, works is not adequately defined by making one or a few
DX QSOs!.

Mike, perhaps you need to formalise your "works" criteria with your
current experience, identifying what you need to record, before making
too many more observations.

I agree with Roy, for each antenna, rx main figure of merit S/N
(crudely S units between ambient noise and signal), and on tx, the
other stations observed S meter reading. (Whole log of issues there...
but a rough start supported by the current RST reporting scheme.)

Owen
--

Is the polarity of the sending station and receiving station relevant
to this discussion??
That is, a dipole sending station and a dipole receiving station would
tend to out perform a dipole sending station and a vertical receiving
station and vice versa?

Are there more stations with dipoles than stations with verticals?

wrote:

Is the polarity of the sending station and receiving station relevant
to this discussion??

Yes on ground wave VHF/UHF. No on HF skip.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

Cecil Moore wrote:
wrote:

Is the polarity of the sending station and receiving station relevant
to this discussion??

Yes on ground wave VHF/UHF. No on HF skip.

Oops, lest some nitpicker jump in, I should have said "surface
wave", not "ground wave". And I probably should have included
a "usually" while I was at it.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

Cecil Moore wrote:

Cecil Moore wrote:
wrote:
Is the polarity of the sending station and receiving station
relevant
to this discussion??
Yes on ground wave VHF/UHF. No on HF skip.

Oops, lest some nitpicker jump in, I should have said "surface
wave", not "ground wave". And I probably should have included
a "usually" while I was at it.
--



*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

Nitpicker alert:

1. You should have not limited the "NO" to HF. Six meters is also a
"NO" for ionospheric skip.

2. Polarity of the signal for ground wave (not surface or space wave)
is indeed important. Vertical polarization works best. Horizontal is
rapidly attenuated.

Bill, W6WRT

"Gary Schafer" wrote in message
...



You want both antennas if you can do it. Anyone who declares one or the
other the winner is simply wrong.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -

I did some tests a couple of years ago on 10 meters between vertical
and horizontal on an 1800 mile path. It seems that there is quite a
bit of rotation in polarity of the signal from minute to minute. I
tried right and left hand circular to confirm that it was rotation.

73
Gary K4FMX


Cross-polarization losses are in the neighborhood of 10-20 dB at VHF and
above. With my license, I cannot do HF, so others may chime in with those
numbers. Assuming ... there's that word ... that the random polarization
variations ("rotations") are around some central figure, during for a given
QSO, then one antenna will work better -- the one that happens to be optimum
for that path and for the antenna on the other end of the QSO.

There exists a phenomenon that I do not understand well, called Faraday
rotation, where an EM wave passing through a magnetic field will undergo a
polarization "alteration", so to speak. Thus, two verticals on the ends of
a long-distance QSO might not perform as well as if one were a vertical and
the other a horizontal -- due to the Earth's magnetic field.

John
KD6VKW