Do you have a “Most effective” band?
I suppose every DXer has a band on which they believe their signal to be at its most effective.
There are several ways in which a DXer might arrive at which band this may be for his particular station. He may:
- Consider the antennas for various bands and conclude that the band with the antenna having the most gain must therefore be the “best” band for that station.
- Consider which band most easily allows maximum power. Some amplifiers won’t load to full power on the higher bands.
- The ease with which pile-ups are dealt with and overcome.
Over the years, I’ve come to realize that the first two methods of determining effectiveness may lead to a false conclusion.
The amount of $$$ you throw at an antenna is not necessarily proportional to its effectiveness and neither is the gain – if your competition has an equivalent station. A few hundred watts either side of a kilowatt (or a few tens of watts either side of 100) is unnoticeable and your band-country count doesn’t take into account the other factors that gave you those numbers – like time spent per band, DX availability, etc.
Even antenna gain may not represent effectiveness the way you think it would (or should). A tri-band Yagi at 60 feet is a great antenna and would be a huge improvement over many a lesser antenna. But in a pile-up, you’re competing with many others who have a very similar set-up.
And here’s what I’m really getting at:
Antenna performance can be measured in absolute terms – dB of gain. Same for an amplifier. They take nothing into account other than the written-in-marble certainties of mathematics.
But band effectiveness contains a variable seldom discussed – the other guys’ antenna, power and geography.
If everyone in a pile-up on 20 meters is using an indoor dipole in their basement and I have a Miracle Whip in the attic, 20 meters will be my most effective band.
But in the real world, if you want to work lots of DX with minimal competition, 20 meters is not the place to be. For most of my ham career, 40 meters has been my most effective band for DXing since I’ve never had a gain antenna on bands where most other DXers do have one.
On the other hand, I have always been able to put up a high, full size dipole on 40 meters while many others – who may have gain antennas on 10-20 meters – cannot. Their lack of that ability has translated into increased effectiveness for me on that particular band, not because of what I have but because of what many don’t.
.
.
Themocracy
In my mind, I think my most effective band is 15m. Now I’ll take a look through my log and see how accurate that is. 18 DX contacts on 15, 24 on 20m. But on 20, it includes Canada, Mexico, and Hawaii stations, none of which have been worked on 15m. So they’re probably about equal in fact.
My antenna is a true “compromise” setup. Maybe most or all could be considered that. I have a 42m long wire loop laid out on the flat roof of my two story apartment building. I only work PSK31 at the moment, and until very recently I was limited to about 5w power (now I can do 20). From what I understand about wire loop antennas, at frequencies <2 wavelengths relative to the antenna the takeoff angle is mostly vertical. As you go past 2 wavelengths, the angle reduces such that it becomes a better DX antenna. This theory is borne out by my logs; all my 80m contacts have been west coast states. All my 40m contacts but one (Hawaii) have been too. 30m starts to get me a little further east, to Colorado and Montana. But all the good stuff is on 20m and higher.
The other contributing factor, though, is that with my setup and my location (in the middle of a big city), the lower bands are also a good bit noisier. I rarely even bother listening on 40 or 80 now, and 30 is uncommon too. I tend to just hang out at the PSK31 watering hole on 20m, and move up if conditions look especially good. My best DX contacts, to the south Pacific, have always come on 20m, around 10pm local time in the summer.
If I went strictly by my log, 15 and 20 have higher DXCC counts than 40m. But on 40m, I seem to have an easier time working New Ones and I think this is due to less competition and the prevalence of compromise antennas on that band by other DXers…more so than what they’re likely to use on the higher bands. Whenever I read of a DXpedition about to air, I consider 40m first when looking at possible band openings and my upcoming schedule.
Yeah, I should have noted that I’m not a serious DX chaser, I’ve never tried to bust a pileup, and in fact I rarely even hear rare entities. My DXCC entities list is quite short at 19 after 3 years. Canary Islands is the farthest east I have worked OR HEARD from home – I never hear any other European stations, at least not on PSK31. I really need to learn CW…
I think the most important is how much fun you have. For some people counting DXCC entities is how they get fun, for others is counting the points at the end of a contest, and for others as you how many interesting fellows they can meet on the air thanks to their radio. I forget the builders, the antenna experimenters, the ATV addicts, the QRSS knights…
I think we should not forget that this is a hobby, and there are many ways of enjoying it!
73,
Yan.
Good afternoon John, for me I find the best band is 20m. It seems to me that most of the action when operating QRPp happens on 20m. If conditions were fantastic all the time I would have to say hands down that 10m does the trick. But because 10m is rarely open and for only short times when it is I have to stick with 20m. At my location 40m is very noisy and is great for just local back and forth to the U.S. With my antenna setup being the attic dipole I am very pleased with the results.
If 10m is open then this is the DX band for me. Although 12m is second, made DX there that I never worked on any other bands. Simply because there are not many that have a good antenna for 12m. But would it really be a matter of a antenna or band? I think in the end it all depends on operating practise. A favorite band is just psychological 73, Bas
Here’s the real question (that I probably should have worded better):
Given the same size pile-up, on what band would you be most successful in getting through? I agree with you about 12m and the reason for it being good – the lack of (compared to 10-15-20m) elaborate antennas on that band by many DXers.
When I still had my rotary dipole on 30m, that was -THE- band where I was able to crack even the most dense pile up in no time, with about 500W. More would/could fry the trap. It fried anyway with far less Watts but that was a H2O problem.
I replaced the WARC antenna with a homebrew inverted V, slighlty lower and not rotatable but compensated with 3dB QRO more. It still works FB but the flat rotatable dipole was better by far. How I miss that!
Like you said: the advantage was a simple no compromise antenna while the others have to do with less.
Apart from 30m being my overall favourite hangout band, I wondered why I score best on 15 in DX contests. My guess is that the height is optimum for DX (1.5 WL, open the band early and close it late) and the 3 full size elements are at an optimum distance on the short boom (6m). This is an OB11-3 tribander (3/3/5 on 20/15/10). I came to this conclusion because I feel the difference on 20 where height is only 1WL and the boom becomes very short.
I had a KLM KT34XA before which was slighlty better on 20 but the OB11-3 plays MUCH better on 15 which compensates.
I do not trust the concept of conductive strips adjusted to resonant lengths by stepper motors (moving parts WILL fail, brittle strips WILL break, plastics WILL be affected by exposure to UV etc), but I often dream it would be great to have ONE antenna that offers gain and directivity on ALL bands from 40 to 10 (6m would be a bonus) and NOT have 101 elements and NOT weigh half a ton and NOT cost an arm and a leg.
That dream is a subliminal message for website URL’s that show conductive strips adjusted to resonant length by stepper motors HI.
I digress from the topic. To close I must say that since replacing the WARC dipole with a rotary dipole for 40, I feel VERY effective there too when it’s half a wave high.
I agree with you about the steppir-type antennas and I believe we’re in the minority. Even though the element lengths are adjusted for optimum, spacing between elements remains the same and is therefore compromise on all bands. With that being the case, I don’t know if the advantages of a steppir may be undone by compromises elsewhere. Their price, the fact of moving parts up high and my gut feeling of compromises in one area undoing advantages elsewhere are such that I’ll never own one.
With what you say about the rotary dipole, I may consider getting one for my Yagi in a year or two – gotta get the basic Yagi up first…
Hi John,
Great topic.
You are right, the “efficiency” of the band is hard to define. It also depend on your operating time and your DX target. By example usually 20m opens late here and is closed at noon local time. However to NA and SA at my available spare time that’s my best band.
40 meters could be a great band, but here you have QRM all over the place so it’s a band to forget for me.
All in all, my preferred bands are 17m and 12m. The first because it is often open and you have no contests and a little bit less competition than on 20m. I like 12m because when open you have great signals and competition is lesser here than on 15m and 10m.
That said, my best DXCC count is on 20m and 15m.
73,
Yan.
17m is becoming my favorite band as well – good conditions, open 20 hours/day, lots of DX, and few pile-ups. I’m even tempted to build a dedicated gain antenna for it.
When I was to build my hybrid Moxon I was tempted to build it for 17m. However for this band it gets larger than my house. Not a problem as is, but to convince my wife a beam was ok I preferred to start with a smaller one and for 15m the size is less impressive.
The good point is in the last years I installed more and more antennas, no one of my guests mentioned it. Conclusion, you can build as much antenna as you want, just put them high upon your roof and no one will look at them.
I would like to know if I can use your blog post in the next issue of my clubs newsletter Short Skip?
Sure, please feel free to use anything on this blog at all.