This morning is kind of a significant one for me - this is the first time since around 1977 that I have had a purpose built outdoor antenna for serious medium-wave DXing. In this case, under the watchful eye and technical guidance of Nick Hall-Patch and Walter Salmaniw, I have purchased a Wellbrook Flag amp and put up a trapezoidal loop (essentially a rectangle) 27' high and around 45' long.
The loop faces N/NW and S/SE and on the S/SE end there is an ordinary 900 ohm resistor - called a termination. What this termination does (and I will leave the deep technical definitions to an actual article on my blog) is create a very directional, but notoriously simple array with directional or null characteristics of upwards of 25 to 30 db front to back. An example from last night: I had the AOR-7030+ connected to a Wellbrook ALA100M "favouring East-West"... and the Drake R8 on the freshly minted Wellbrook Flag (and to be fair, Nick will probably chime in and correct me as to what the correct name is for this loop -- because it has an inventor -- so credit where credit is due!) Anyway - on 860khz (on the 7030+ was Spanish with a bit of CBC English deep in the background...) on the Drake R8 there was CBC Prince Rupert profoundly in the clear with not a hint of signals to the South. Remarkable! One after the other examples started to pile up last night where I had 2 great receivers side by side hearing a significantly different mix of signals on the same frequency! I could not have felt more giddy! I now had a set-up, that by definition, might get me back in the game for TA reception to Europe, Alaska and Trans Pacific - to at least compete on some level and offer some meaningful data and intel to the likes of local masters, Hall-Patch and Salmaniw. Coming up in the next e-mail: My morning report! -- *Colin Newell is the Editor and creator of Coffeecrew.com <http://www.Coffeecrew.com> - Coffee.bc.ca <http://Coffee.bc.ca> and DXer.ca <http://www.DXer.ca> -| Amateur Radio VA7WWV | Twitter.Com/CoffeeCrew | Victoria B.C. Canada* _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list IRCA@hard-core-dx.com http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org To Post a message: irca@hard-core-dx.com