On Sunday 22 February 2009 15:19, Robert S.Ross VA3SW wrote: > I don't think I need a Reality Check Barry.........I haven't put > this in the Log.....it's a UNID as it stands...we're just trying to > look at the Possibilities....and until I hear an ID from > it.....I'll never know just how tight the Beam is on my ULR!!
Please don't take this the wrong way - all I'm saying is that if you're going to use antenna orientation as an aid to ID'ing stations, you need to have a realistic idea of what the antenna pattern looks like. I guess what puzzles me is your use of the term "beam", which implies (to me, anyway) the existence of a narrow lobe, such as that produced by an array antenna like a yagi, or a traveling-wave antenna like a beverage. It's not possible to produce a narrow lobe like that with a small antenna, which typically has a "short dipole" figure-8 pattern. Now, if you use the nulls in that pattern to determine direction (i.e., nulling the unid station), that's a different story, but even then, it can be tricky to get good direction-finding accuracy. A good way to check would be to try measuring the direction of some known stations, and then looking up their headings to see how well you did. Just trying to be helpful, not critical... Barry -- Barry McLarnon VE3JF Ottawa, ON _______________________________________________ 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