[Elecraft] Minicircuits splitter for diversity?

[Jim Brown]

On 11/9/2017 3:42 PM, Jim Miller wrote:
> I can't use my TX antenna as one of the antennas in a diversity setup since
> it is far too close to my RX vertical array. So when listening I detune my
> TX antenna. And of course it not only lacks sufficient distance but is of
> the same polarization as my RX array. I only have 1 acre here and my
> antennas are pretty much limited to the rear half of the lot.

Not necessarily true.  Look at the VE3DO loop on my website. I have two 
loops phased with an NCC-1, but I often use one or both of them in 
diversity with one of my TX verticals. Spacing between them is only 
about 100 ft. Consider using one of these loops in diversity with your 
TX antenna.

> I've done more research and it seems that for 160 the usual suspects are
> all vertically polarized: small loops, beverages, K9AY.

I get good diversity between verticals.

> So what I really
> need is something with horizontal polarization and so far that means a
> dipole. Not clear that a lowish, short dipole will hear much on 160. It
> might be useful for 80m however and I have height and space for that.

Horizontal dipoles, even low ones, can be good RX antennas. For 160 
contests, N6RO patches lots of his antennas for other bands to his 
operating position for RX and switches between them. Note the difference 
in the vertical pattern of the VE3DO loop and a Beverage, or of a 
vertical. The VE3DO loop has a lot of high angle, whereas the TX 
vertical has a much lower vertical pattern. Signals may arrive high 
during one part of an opening and low at a different time. Don't get 
hung up on polarization, and don't let the ideal be the enemy of the good.

Last spring, I bought an 8x2 RX antenna switcher, and started using it 
on the lower bands, especially 160-40. Around the same time, I rigged 
the VE3DO loops and ran them to an NCC-1. Anything worth doing is worth 
doing to excess. :)  Every time I dig for a weak signal or try to kill 
QRM or noise I learn something new.

Also remember that slow fading (what has long been called selective 
fading) on the lower bands is really the cancellation of two arrivals of 
the same signal arriving that have traveled slightly different paths, 
and are thus shifted in time from each other. The phase difference 
between them will be different at every point in space, so when they are 
equal and 180 out of phase at one point, they often will not be at 
another point. The deep nulls in a fade are with the signals are very 
precisely equal and very precisely 180 out. Without that precision, 
there will be far less cancellation, and it doesn't take much a lot 
difference to make the null far less deep. Picket-fencing at VHF and UHF 
is exactly the same phenomenon -- the difference in the period of the 
fade is entirely due to wavelength.

73, Jim K9YC