The test has not been carried out yet - awaiting the summer.
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As a little update: we have been working with Frank Donovan W3LPL on an enhancement to our performance measuring system. He will be testing the new system shortly but initial indications are very exciting. Frank has a rather special radio station - check it out on QRZ. Itâs proved to be very handy as he can generate more data in a few hours than most folks can generate in several months.
All this work will feed into our experiment to answer SOTAâs big question (not the one about whatâs wrong with the database; the other one).
I think we already know the answer. âIt dependsâ.
The main problem is defining the question.
And mainly boils down to âwhat compromises are tolerable?â
I like VK1DAâs response. QSB is (probably) too rapid to EVER get a clear answer. You ask the wrong question(s) entirely IMHO⌠The real question(s) for a SOTA activation: what is the lightest, the fastest to set up and tear down, will stand up in high winds, can easily be put up by one person in a high wind, can go up almost no matter what the nature of the peak is, can be repeatedly raised and lowered and not fail? My SOTA antenna for 20/30/40 meters weighs 2 ounces, deploys in three or four minutes, has not broken in 500 activations, is almost self-supporting on a braced pole (no guys) that weighs six ounces, presents almost no resistance to wind, cost just few dollars, and is neither a vertical, nor a dipole, nor strictly speaking horizontal or vertical, as it is an EFHW deployed in an inverted-L. No feedline, no coax, none of the associated jacks and plugs where most failures occur, made of #28 teflon wire, uses two homemade traps that weigh two grams each and demonstrate loss too small to matter. - fred KT5X (aka WS0TA)
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Despite that, I like what Richard is doing and will be very interested in the results.
Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH
I didnât ask the question Fred. I am simply using the best available technology to explore the answers. You have posed a different but equally valid question. No doubt there will be a range of opinions on the answers.
Work on this experiment has been progressing nicely in the background. We have further refined our system to allow real-time analysis by wave-angle/range. Currently this is in beta but the results look very good. A few examples are on my blog:
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Wow, W3LPLâs station is quite amazing.
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