"First, let's try to bury that silly myth that because an antenna is down 10 dB on receive you will hear 10db less S/N ratio. that just is not true, and we should work to stop feeding that silly myth.

"People lived in areas with more room as a general rule, and there wasn't much local noise. As a matter of fact the noise that blankets the earth was about 10 dB less or worse on average."

---

> Yep, you wonder if anyone trys the attenuators that come with radios. S-Meter drops; DX is still there. Just as copyable.

> There was tons of noise in the 50s. I could hear cars coming down the road 1/4 mile from my house.

I doubt hams had better antennas years ago. Many  hams then were penniless 12-18 year old kids. Yagis were rare until the early '50s.
 

Just about everything works as an antenna to some extent.

By the way, was listening to a guy claim that he and a ham friend would work each other with grid dip oscillators over a distance of 200 miles!

When I was 10 years old I worked a kid 500' away with a wire connected to a door buzzer (yes, illegal QRP spark)

I have made Qs with a dummy load. The bare minimum for an antenna or rig can be pretty minimal.

"Maybe I should start building a big black $500 box with an epoxy potted 80m L network and a relay in it and call it the "N3OX super 80m Booster for 43 foot verticals"

---
Brilliant. No doubt you would be rated 5 out of 5 if you kissed up to each buyer. Just make sure the first few reviews are 5's. "Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome.

It helps if the reviewers are dumb or new to the hobby. My favorite is the guy who raved about another antenna because he got lots off 59 reports during the CQWW contest (everyone gets 59s) and worked Egypt and Pakistan on 40 SSB (they were actually busted calls).  

"3. And finally why does my 44.5 foot vertical work when a lot of verbage in posting say it shouldn't?"

<<<NO ONE>>> ever claimed these antennas don't work. They don't work well on 160 or 80. But neither do most shortened verticals. They aren't very good DX antennas above 20 meters.

"43 foot verticals" can be rightly criticized for being very expensive <<<IF>>> you add $300-$600 for a good KW tuner and more money for a run of very high quality coax needed to cut high feed line losses on 160 and 80.
------------------------------------------------

"In fact, last weekend I made a number of DX contacts in the Europe "contest" (no I wasn't the alleged bad operator on 20M)"

I used to work all sorts of common DX with a mobile whip from my hi-rise balcony, a terrible set up I wouldn't wish on anyone.

----------------------------------------------------

By the way, there is nothing critical about the DX Engineering 44.5 feet (it's actually 45' if built with their SUGGESTED tubing overlap. ZeroFives is 41' according to their instructions.

Ike was incredibly destructive far beyond Texas. Three dead in the Saint Louis area including the wife of my doctor who was struck by a falling limb as she walked their dog.

Heavy rain, 5 inches here, plus 50 mph rain probably took out some towers. Many cars underwater. Many homes and businesses flooded.

The press totally focuses on Texas. But Ike was a severe regional disaster that also included Arkansas, Missouri, northern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.  
       

"Copper hits 8-month low on financial market worries.  Aluminium stock rise pushes it to lowest since January."

 

So if I understand Cary, NBC can delay ID breaks until their Verdi Opera ends, but I have to ID every 10 minutes during the telling of my hernia story?  

"They should be at your door within a couple of hours"

Except that Hurricane/Tropical storm Ike or what's left of it should be reaching Ohio about now. We had 4-5 inches of Ike related rain in Saint Louis early this morning and wind gusts up to 50 MPH. Might be best to wait before calling the utility.

In Missouri, we sometimes get minor rain and wind remnants from Gulf Hurricanes. But Ike is still producing substantial damage as it goes north and swings east. I've never seen anything like it.



 
 

A Collins KW1 (not KWS1) kilowatt transmitter came in a 66 inch tall rack, weighed 600 pounds and cost several thousand dollars... in 1950

http://www.wa3key.com/kw1.html

In those days you either built your rig or you were wealthy. Excellent equipment today is very inexpenisve.

"How would I word my next letter"

Letter???!!

If you think there is a remote chance this is a safety or even RFI problem, <<<phone>>> their emergency phone number today (Yes, Sunday). RFI often presages safety and outage problems.

Our local company happily responds to RFI issues quickly and safety issues immediately. I'm not sure why you think that reporting it is a problem.

Get the names of all utility people you contact.

Hams take this stuff very seriously. Cary Grant less so. And with full orchestral accompaniment.

http://www.dinosaurgardens.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/Cary_Grant_-_FCC_Station_Identification_Regulations.mp3

Note there was flexibility in commercial station identification requirements even in 1939

"Rules are rules"  Not actually.

For example, FCC allows commercial stations a great deal of flexibility. No one wants to be responsible for going to a station ID when the USA scores a winning hockey goal over Russia.

Wikipedia says:

"At one time, the FCC gave specific guidelines for how close to the top of the hour [commercial] stations were expected to be:

"within 3 minutes" for normal scheduled programming
"within 5 minutes" for unrehearsed programming with logical breaks, such as sporting events and parades
"as close as possible" for programming that had no definite break on the hour, such as speeches and classical music performances lasting longer than an hour; broadcasters were not expected to interrupt legitimate programming for a station ID."

I'm considering replacing two 3-foot sections of my DXEngineering MBVE-1 fast taper model with 6-foot sections to make the radiator about 51 feet tall. That would slightly improve 80 and 160 operation while killing off low angle performance on 20. The original size can easily be restored by telescoping the tubing.

I see that ZeroFive now makes a 50' version of their antenna which is probably similar to my idea.

Depending on your situation, these antennas should be able to be lengthened safely to 50 feet or more with proper guying.

Note that the ZeroFive "43 footer" is actually only about 41' tall, I believe. The MBVE is 45' tall.

How to make it better:

I have the DXEngineering version. Lower the vertical using the nice tilt base. Attach top loading wires and turn it into a fairly efficient mono-band vertical for 80 or even 160. Remove wires to restore original operation.

Everyone forgets 60 meters. Make vertical better by removing the balun giving you have a very effective resonant vertical for that band.

Theory of operation: sell the antenna to unsophisticated new hams, be very nice to them and encourage them to write glowing reviews. Hope no one notices the performance is poor on lowest and highest bands. Make a lot of money before 10/12/15 meters get hot again.  

Most reviewers will just parrot other reviews, as in  "The Emperor's New Clothes."

My quickie guide to sounding like a "one by two" ham:

The more experienced the ham the more likely he is  to use normal conversational language and common sense procedure.

Use little ham jargon, and very few Q signals on phone.

Experienced hams eschew artificially formal Hollywood type military jargon such as niner and roger.

***Common sense***: Why would anyone give their call but "for ID purposes" and aren't all signal reports given on a "Last Heard" basis!

In general, less is more. And, anything DX nets do is wrong!

(over over)