[ADXA] 3y0k 80m info

[w5znjoel at gmail.com]

Jussi,

Your last sentence inquires about diversity receive. The short answer is
YES, it will improve on QSB.

Most hams do not understand diversity reception. They believe you just throw
out two antennas connected to a receiver and you're good to go. That could
not be further from the truth! I know you are aware of the difference so for
the benefit of others I'll briefly explain. 

To correctly establish and take advantage of true diversity receive you must
have two receivers, each with a separate antenna, and these two receives
must be phase locked together. There are several claims from radio
manufacturers that their radio will do diversity receive but that is
blatantly false! There are only two radios currently that will perform true
diversity receive and that is the Elecraft K3, K3s, K4D, and the Flex
Radios. These MUST have dual receivers so you will need the 2nd RX in the
K3/K3s and the K4 must be a K4D that has the 2nd RX.

It is my standard operating procedure on 160 meters to ALWAYS us diversity
receive. The BSEF-8 vertical array is always on RX1 and the HiZ-8 on RX 2. I
have the ability to switch either receiver to either the YCCC-9 or Beverage
antennas if needed.

During diversity receive, RX1 will be in one ear and RX 2 in the other and
you can hear the amazing "bouncing around" of the signals in strength in one
ear versus the other. At times one will fade just so briefly to miss a
character or more on CW but the other ear still has the sig. Will it also
help on FT8? The short answer is yes.

There is one caveat regarding diversity receive, just like having a high-end
RX antenna and that is it will NOT create propagation! You must still have
propagation path at some level to establish or sustain communications.

73 Joel W5ZN

-----Original Message-----
From: adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net <adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf
Of Jussi Eloranta
Sent: Saturday, March 7, 2026 3:26 PM
To: 'ADXA' <adxa at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: [ADXA] 3y0k 80m info

I worked 3y0k last night on 80m around their sun rise (about 0530Z). 
There was nothing before that and the signal came up nicely for about 20 min
and then was gone. So, in addition to possible early evening opening to
Bouvet, be sure to also check out their sun rise.

I was also testing two receiving antennas, the inv L (which I use also for
transmitting) and beverage on ground directed towards Bouvet (200 ft long
with 320 ohm termination resistor, no impedance transformer). Both antennas
were able to hear 3y0k with both showing deep QSB. But when one antenna
faded away, the other one seemed to be coming up. I wonder if some sort of
diversity set up would be beneficial here - to be tested.

Jussi (aa6kj)


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