To first start this article, a little background on myself is probably in order. I am a General Class ham, who started in the hobby later in life (I was first licensed in 1994 at the age of 47). I didn't know a lot about radios then, so my first HF rig was one I bought because I could afford it and I knew the brand name. I bought a vertical antenna, and, voila, I was a ham operator. But something was missing.

I live in a valley so signals are a little harder to come by because of the location. Not many signals, and a lot of noise. Thus began my quest. Knowledge is a powerful tool, so I started reading and talking to hams who had been in the hobby a lot longer than I had. From this reading and these discussions came my implementation of "Hi Performance Ham Radio".

First, and most important, is antennas. The best you can afford is the only way to go. This does not always mean the most expensive. There are many hi performance wire antennas that can be built for little money. My personal favorite is a sky loop (a horizontal loop somewhat close to the ground). I have an 80 meter loop up a little less than 20 feet that shows some very good performance, especially on the higher frequency bands. This antenna has a lot of gain on 10 and 20 meters, and somewhat lower take off angles than at 80 meters. Being horizontal, it seems to be a quieter antenna than others. What is really nice is the gain on 10 and 20 meters. Remember, antenna gain works both on receive and transmit! Although I could probably feed it with a good low loss coax, I fed it with 450 ohm ladder line, and installed a W9INN balun just before my tuner. I also use a 3 element Yagi up about 40'. The yagi has quite a bit of gain, front to back signal rejection, as well as front to side rejection. Hopefully, this coming year, I will upgrade this to an even better type of beam.

Next is feedline. The best low loss coax is definitely more expensive than the run of the mill coaxes, but worth it in the long run. LMR 400, 9913, and some of the Super 8 coaxes are very low loss, and come with jackets that resist UV and can be direct buried, if you like.

Next is the antenna tuner (if you use one, and you probably will with any hi performance wire antenna). If you use ladder line exclusively, then a good old Johnson Matchbox is really hard to beat. The balanced, balanced antenna tuner described in ARRL publications, is also very good. For coax, the only choice, in my opinion, is an "L" type tuner. They are more efficient than other types, and only tune in one place, which is the most efficient. There are a couple of commercial products that will do the job nicely.

The last, is the radio itself. General coverage receivers are out. The extra noise that comes in with the signals you want is hard to deal with. A "Ham Band"; only transceiver, with good specs, band preselectors, lots of crystal filtering options, notch, and Pass Band filtering will go a long way pulling in the weak ones. Crystal filters are great for adjacent strong signal rejection.

If you have gone this far, you will probably find a lot of band noise (especially if your receiver has a lot of gain in the IF). This was my last investment. An aftermarket DSP filter will go a long way as far as eliminating band noise, so that you can still hear that signal that might not even hardly deflect the "S" meter.

After following this road, I am hearing more and weaker signals with the greatest of ease. My equipment does not match, but I can see no performance advantage in matching equipment. My equipment is older, but is of excellent quality. And I can hear and work the weak ones! This is my idea of Hi Performance Ham Radio.