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« on: February 16, 2021, 0744 UTC »
Anyone remember the Big Stick from the 70's to the 90's? I had one in 1992 and locally it talked about 10 miles around. Granted, I was just under 15ft off the ground with it. However, in April of that year, 11M DX exploded from Europe and Asia. France, UK, Spain, Germany, with just a few watts in the afternoons. And, daily QSO's with a friend in Texas. Yeah, that was a great skip talking antenna for 11M, the best that I ever had, looking back on it. When you look at the design of what the Big Stick was, it was a coaxial antenna, or a modified Dipole, really. So, my guess would be that a matched VERT Dipole will hear stuff locally from about 20 miles, depending on antenna height, but should be a damn good Sporadic "E" and F2 antenna when the propagation comes around again. Oh yeah!!!! In 1999, I made a VERT 11M Dipole from a 102" whip, with 106" of cobbed dehumidifier aluminum coil straightened out, for a radial. It talked to mobile stations 20 miles out, and it too heard some nice skip. I think that was the antenna that I DX'ed the Hamburg, Germany 10M FM repeater on 29.690-/R, hitting me at S20/9. I also DX'ed a 10M AM QSO on 29.000MHz from an East German working a dude in Utah off a whip from the Soviet Military. I heard both stations over S9. Damn, I miss those conditions. But, there ya go... Possibilities of what might be possible with a Dipole VERT on 11M. It will DX down to 20M nicely too and hear 6M stations as well.
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