[Lowfer] Over night lowfers - W8BYA

[Gedas]

Hi Mike and HNY to you.
I am glad we have folks like yourself who think the way you do. I feel 
the same way. I really enjoy messing with different antennas and seeing 
how and when one will out perform another and on what type of signals etc.

Last night was nothing short of spectacular as far a LW TA propagation. 
Actually the best I have ever heard. I was listening to and making WAV 
recordings of AM LWBC stations from Algeria, Morocco, the UK etc. They 
were all just like local AM stations......perfect easy ear copy of news 
and music from all stations all night.

I was about to take apart the loop and salvage the 550' of #14 wire I am 
using on it so I am glad I read your message first. The loop 
outperformed ALL of my wire antennas by at least 10 dB S/N. Up until the 
loop I was never able to hear a single LWBC station and that was 1-2 
years worth of trying. With it I was able to tune the loop to a 3-4 kHz 
BW and get really nice signal strength and most importantly increased 
S/N. But I found that in general the new active vertical outperforms the 
passive loop by between 6-15 dB.  The clear advantage of the loop is it 
has great nulls I can use to advantage whereas the vertical is pure omni.

I will collect some data from both over the next several days and see if 
I can provide a summary here. What I do see is that during the day close 
stations (less than 300 km or so) like SIW, WM, and EAR are beautiful 
solid and clear copy during the day. But once the sun sets these all get 
fuzzy and at times completely are gone. I.e., the band gets long and 
stations like TAG and SJ come in good.  It's neat to see this.

Anyway, I injured my lower back (actually re-injured) it and just 
walking out to the backyard to tune the loop to the watering hole is 
going to be painful but in the name of science we will get-er done :-) 
Give me a few days to collect some data. 73

Gedas, W8BYA EN70JT
Light travels faster than sound.....
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

On 1/7/2024 12:37 PM, N8OOU wrote:
> Gedas,
>
> Thanks for the view of the Lowfers. Your new antenna seems to be 
> snatching in the signals. Is your loop still usable? If so I would be 
> very interested to see an A vs B grab. Like half the screen on the 
> loop, and second half the Vert. Any better/worse comments?
>
> Experimenting in this band is great fun for me. I think this is one of 
> the true Amateur Radio band. This past weekend I finally found the 
> noise issue with my LNV. It's reception has been getting worse, and 
> noisier since summer. I found a connection at the antenna corroded 
> from the Bug Spray I had used to evict a big Paper Wasp development.
>
> Thanks for listening.
>
> 73   de   N8OOU - Mike Meek
>
> On 1/7/24 10:13, Gedas wrote:
>> HNY to all. TU for the captures Gary. I too was playing with the new 
>> ARGO version and parked it at the watering hole. Here is TAG, WM, and 
>> SIW from my QTH in EN70JT using a new vertical antenna vs the loop I 
>> was using. Ear now comes in 24/7 as do WM and SIW. It's neat that 
>> right at sunset I see TAG in and out for about an hour but best 
>> captures are later in the night just prior to sunrise. No SJ here 
>> either. I keep hoping for WH2XXP out west but no luck so far. 
>> 73Gedas, W8BA EN70JT
>>
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