Judging from my own observations and feedback that I get I would say that using a low dipole or horizontal polarity antenna would also depend on what Latitude/Longitude your station is located and how close you are to the sea. Here above 45 degrees Latitude and 200 miles from the sea, I seldom see signals arriving that would benefit from a low horizontal antenna. It does happen however and always early in the a.m.. When FT5XO was on the air I saw their signal change from a very low angle signal received well with verticals to a high angle signal where none of my vertical receiving antennas exhibited any directivity in a couple hours one morning. I have only seen this in the morning when listening West into the Pacific. I have not heard it listening to the East in the evening. So, I say ask around in your area to see what the guys are happy with. I don't think you would hear as many DX signals in my location with a low horizontal as you would with verticals. I am pushing 200 countries on 160 having only used vertical receiving arrays. Or put up both as one can never have enough low-band receiving antennas. Lee K7TJR OR
-----Original Message----- From: Topband [mailto:topband-boun...@contesting.com] On Behalf Of James Wolf Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2014 10:30 AM To: 'JC'; 'Top Band Contesting' Subject: Re: Topband: Non-resonant receive antennas Thanks JC, I agree that the RDF number is significant when evaluating a receive antenna. I agree that no one antenna system will work all of the time. Consider we have two scenarios: One RX antenna system that consists of two parallel antennas (Broadside) , and the other is the same antenna configured in-line, toward the desired signal (Delayed series fed). What I am asking is if anyone has any, on-the-air experience and would recommend one antenna system over the other for *most conditions*. In other words, will an antenna that has a less lower elevation pattern generally outperform an antenna that has a narrower beam width, but a higher elevation angle? I think in this we need to consider the arrival angle of atmospheric noise in a broadside array vs. atmospheric noise in a series fed array. Since atmospheric noise propagates and the arrival angle will change, which scenario would provide the general overall better performance? Jim - KR9U _____________ Jim RDF is everything ! The RX antenna system is the only way to improve signal to noise ratio. All electronic device is not perfect and introduce noise and deteriorate the signal to noise ratio, including your radio too _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband