No less than 395
different stations spotted on 160m FT8 RX in the last day, including 23 North Americans and 1 Caribbean station on the earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground. I cannot really expect to do much better even with a big 160m antenna and extensive ground system surely. Best DX was
W7AO (7688km) on the west coast of the USA.
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| Stations spotted in last 24 hours here on 160m FT8 RX. |
Would you please describe your earth electrode antenna again? It's been a couple of years since you last did so, and I'm a bit hazy about the details. I seem to recall it being a length of bare wire buried in your garden.
ReplyDeleteThe far end is a ground rod (copper I think) about 1m long. The wire back to the shack is about 12m long and runs along the garden fence (about 1.5m off the ground). At the near (shack end) it connects to the mains ground.
ReplyDeleteAt the old QTH I tried a separate ground just outside the shack and running the "return" wire along the ground. Results were much the same. At 137kHz, 472kHz and 1.84MHz I am pretty sure this structure acts as a loop in the ground.