[PaQSO] Party Roving

[Hank Greeb]

I can tell you that a dipole @ 50 to 70' beats anything lower.  I've had 
the luxury of operating at places where 50 to 70' "naturally occurring 
antenna supports" were in abundance, and in other places where I could 
only must 30 to 40' with military surplus masts.

When permitted by QSO Party rules, use of reversebeacon.net to search 
for one's only call is an excellent way to determine how the signal is 
being received throughout other country.  Anything better than 10 dB s/n 
seems to get attention of folks.

My viewpoint - keep it light, keep it simple, but put it as high as 
possible.

One thought - contact N9FN @ Purdue University - he snarfed a 
communications van when it was surplus of a local TV station. It came 
with a 40' pneumatic tower, which he uses to support a triband beam.  He 
can tell you how practical it is, how much it costs to operate, etc.

72/73 de n8xx Hg
QRP >99.44% of the time

On 12/10/2012 6:48 PM, Jimk8mr at aol.com wrote:
>
> There would be no electrical advantage to using a dipole made from a tribander's driven element vs. using a dipole at the same height.  Mechanical/erecting issues would be the difference. At 25 feet on 20 meters,  you're still not going to be very loud. On 20 meter CW you may do OK, on SSB likely not.
>   
> I had good success this year feeding a quarter wave of wire on 40 meters and using the mag mount on the car for the counterpoise. It made for a very  simple and easily erected antenna. It worked very well from rare places like NUM and CRN this past October.
>   
> I've not tried such for the higher bands. I'm sure the antenna would work, I'm just not sure how much better it would be than the HamStick or other mobile  whips I've been using.
>    
> 73  -   Jim   K8MR