Hi group,

I just returned from my two weeks in the mountains near Gunnison, Colorado.
My best antenna was a 40m wire dipole strung between two trees, about 20
feet up. Yes, that's too low for optimum take-off-angle (TOA) but the
mountains on each side were high, so I think I benefited from what would
have been a deficiency on flat land. On Tuesday night, I surprised the
local club by checking into our 40m proficiency net from up there on 7183.
Good comms.

I had many other QSO's on 40, especially with the west coast, but very
little action on 20, even when using a dipole cut for 20. I think the TOA
was theoretically more nearly optimum for 20 but I was banging all my RF
straight into the mountainsides.

I had precut the antennas and had a good match on both of them. I also
brought precut element pairs for 15 and 10, but I never heard a whisper on
either band, so I didn't install those antennas.

On the way home (San Diego) we stopped in Las Vegas and I tried another
Tuesday night 7183 checkin from the hotel parking structure. Should have
worked but I made a stupid mistake by hanging the 40m antenna off the west
side of the parking structure. Should have been the south side. I proved
that not much comes off the ends of a dipole.

Did that antenna really work hanging from the parking structure? Yes,
absolutely. I heard a lot of other people on 40. Then, when I inserted my
little tuner and checked 20m, I heard a VK about 5-7. Naturally, I tried
him a few times but he was answering other people and I was sweating like a
pig in the setting Las Vegas sun.

Finis.

Sal
(KD6VKW)