Horizontal vs Vertical

horizontal vs vertical...

Which works best for DX?

I have a Horizontal halfwave dipole for 10/11 meters and it receives America really well. Today I made a contact on it from London to a truck driver in California going Southbound 18... I do wonder sometimes if I had a vertical whether I would be getting more contacts or hitting different areas. It is hard to determine which is going to work better but I guess maybe experience will tell in time. I know that vertical most definitely works better locally. Horizontal not so good for local. I mainly have horizontal because its very convenient, I have antenna restrictions and no space to set up a vertical so going horizontal works better for me but most importantly is vertical better than horizontal for DX?

From my experience, the vertical antenna works great for me, and I’ve made really good contacts with it. However, the problem (at least for me) is that I can't reach some very distant countries with it, like the west coast of North and South America, Japan, or New Zealand. With a half-wave dipole, I managed to make contact with New Caledonia, but with the vertical antenna, I’ve never been able to even hear it.

I gave up on the half-wave dipole because it's a directional antenna, and I was using it on a balcony where one side was blocked by the building. Things only improved for me when I raised the vertical antenna above the roof of the building into an open space.

For DX, the Moxon and Delta loop antennas are also very good if you have the option to set them up somewhere.

Since you like wire antennas and you're not limited to just CB, check out this video.
https://youtu.be/gx4wx6163tY?si=gYPd0E8Vat3EThOg
It's a couple from Serbia who are very successful at what they do.

Vertical seems to be the better option. Horizontal is more of a compromise. I think I'd be making a lot more contacts on 10/11M with a vertical. I hear many stations but not many hear me.

Horizontal long wire here.....hitting all Continents.
(QRP/low power too. )

Put up what you can and work with what you have, much better than the alternative of no antenna.

As for hearing stations that can't hear you, many are 'alligator' stations being all mouth and no ears whether on CB or the Ham bands. You'll hear their Kilo-Watt plus but they won't hear you unless you're doing the same. (Or maybe a big beam with a few hundred Watts!)

I love it when they can pick up my apparently pitiful few Watts and know that everything fell just right (including a fickle Mother Nature and propagation conditions) and revel in it.

It's definitely not for everyone though, we all have different 'tastes'.

73

I have a feeling I would have done just as well on a damp shoe lace, I think there are some improvements I could make because during lift conditions when they are very good like they have been anything could work to make a few contacts and its very hard to know how efficient an antenna really is.

I may try a 29 foot piece of wire on a 9:1 unun might work better, although I don't really know but always worth a try...

I watched a video of an inverted V antenna which may work better than my dipole although both antennas are almost the same just the legs pointed downwards.

I know that many CBers run huge amounts of power especially those on 27.025 but on UKFM I'm barely hearing people 3 or 4 miles away and my local range is pitiful. I should be doing much better than that. I understand horizontal isn't for local but I should still be doing better regardless. I got more range locally when I lived in a basement.

Edited: We need more people doing experiments like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAxKXLt8ZmY

So it would seem that 4 miles is about average range locally on a horizontal center fed dipole at 4 watts to stations with vertical antennas. The interesting part was when the low & high power test was done on the horizontal and range didn't increase locally so this indicates that the antenna is working as expected to work as it should. On a vertical range locally would increase with an increase of power. 

The thing about CB is its just not Ham Radio, people buy a 5/8 vertical and whack it on a pole and get it as high as they can go and often use illegal power and no antenna experimentation is done so when you get some people who can't put up an 18 foot vertical they get stuck on what to do and often give up because an 18 foot vertical can seem like the only solution. There is always going horizontal as another option.

For me vertical all the way. Much more practical and also great for DX. I regularly reach Thailand, Réunion Island, the USA, west Africa, etc…to name a few. I currently use a Sirio 2008 in England perched on chimney and a President Himalaya WB when I use my south of France QTH. They are both performing very well and sturdy. Good luck!

You can study antennas until the cows come home (and still get nowhere!) so in my book it's always best to get up what you can and work with it. Of course you'll always hanker for a 'better' antenna but that's the nature of the hobby.


In my instance I have limited capabilities so relied on my wife for antenna erecting and I don't have the income to shell out for someone else to do it for me. Living in a village with village type neighbours I also didn't want a hulking big mast with an antenna aloft it for boney fingers to be pointing at so settled with a less obtrusive horizontal which is working fine for me. Up until then I had worked a large part of the world with antennas firmly hidden in the loft space so it can't all be bad. (Down to 160m too!)

If you start to model antennas with the various bits of software out there you'll find that a 5/8ths isn't all it's cracked up to be depending on your ground properties let alone your surrounding terrain. Height isn't always might in some instances and a low down 1/2 wave could very well out perform it. It's hardly surprising then that different people get different results despite having the 'same' setup.

As you've pointed out when conditions are ripe you can work the world with the proverbial wet noodle and be very happy. It's the times when conditions aren't ripe that frustration can set in but for me it's all part of the fun.

I have a horizontal antenna just shy of 20m or some 60 odd foot which although models as an NVIS for the lower bands has allowed me to work Stateside, the Caribbean and South America showing modelling isn't everything. For the higher bands the multi-wave length produces some interesting patterns with gain in certain directions at pretty low angles but you'll obviously have the nulls to contend with. Experimentation has shown that different counterpoise wire lengths alter that pattern enough to avert the nulls swinging the antenna pattern around.

But then I have experimented with mains noise filtering, power supply types, common mode choking, selection of impedance matching transformers (they're not all the same even if of the same kind due to selection of ferrite materials) along with further impedance matching solutions such as ATU's. Not everyone agrees on those type of solutions for whatever personal reasons they may have.

Common place 'solutions' don't always commonly work so always best to find out for yourself in many cases.

If you've got room for a 29 foot horizontal then why not have a go at a fold-back design giving you a 58 foot length to play with. Utilising a 9:1 Un-Un you'd get everything from 60m to 6m with an ATU along with the complex patterns at the higher end giving some gain in certain directions.

(Source: https://k7mem.com/Ant_End_Fed.html )

Up to you really in the end, just make sure you enjoy what you're doing.  


73

The perceived wisdom suggests that line-of-sight contacts between a vertically polarised aerial versus a horizontal polarised aerial, suffers from a loss of 20dB as compared to similarly polarised aerials.

It also seems that the polarisation of a signal can and does change, when it's being refracted through the ionosphere.

Lets face it big gun stations dont use verticals

For DX I find horizontal works best and I also use an inverted V. I work 10-15m on a 1/2 wave H dipole, 20-40>80 on the inverted V. For DX I find the polarisation less important than lift. Sure for local vertical would be better, especially if you want to work mobile stations. In theory there is a loss when one station is using a beam/horizontal and the other station a vertical but that doesn't apply over very long distance as the polarisation flips many times over such distances. I've just put up a 1/2 wave vertical for local contacts as the horizontal is almost deaf locally. In fact horizontal is often preferred for DX for the very fact that it is a little deaf locally as it helps keep the unwanted noise down. If you have room for both then you have the best of both worlds.

It seems that neither vertical or horizontal polarisation is best.

Dave Casler, KE0OG, explains in his latest video that when the transmitted waves bounce off of the ionosphere, they change to circularly polarised O waves (ordinary) and E waves (exra ordinary) - Each is polarised in opposite directions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqRO1XYl5bE

Deb

Currently using only a horizontal dipole in a slightly inverted V configuration for 10m, with the end 30cm of it's legs pointing straight down mounted in the loft. Antenna shape is the cyan coloured line below.


I am getting the same results, working all the areas of the world that I did with my vertically polarized delta loop with the same low power. It's orientated to fire mostly east/west, but still pulls in countries to the south.. worked two different stations in Malawi in past few days.

Horizontal, vertical, or even circular polarization, as Deb has brought to our attention, may bring better DX results for different people. Right now though, with the solar cycle at it's possible peak, I'd urge anyone who is even only slightly interested in DX on 11m or the higher HF ham bands, to not worry too much about what might be the best antenna and to get anything up and crack on.. you'll work some DX I'm sure with little effort. Have fun, I am!

The answer to this one is fairly and squarely whatever option you can get highest. Either horiz or vert.

In good to very good conditions on SSB phone which is the most challenging you are right that a relatively poor antenna can make good dx contacts.

Specific to 10/11m bands when the conditions are less good whatever you can get highest up with ease will do the best job. This is because with height you lower the take of angle and generally up to 1 wavelength off the ground the lowest angle through to high will remain quite consistent in terms of dispersion of RF. (i.e. low angle to high angle)

So you will get good take off from 5 through around 20 degrees. The higher your vertical the more power you put out at a lower angle of course. This can become critical when the conditions are less favourable and that is a good 5-6 years of the cycle.

A horizontal gets a little more "ground gain" than a vertical does.

It all comes back down generally eliptically polarized

As you have found out most 10/11 stations will be vertical, especially 11m. So local distances will be best vertical.

Also factor in QRM as this will likely be less when horizontal.

It is almost impossible to beat this Sirio 1/2 wave vertical for performance and cost £55.00

https://www.nevadaradio.co.uk/sirio-gps27-1-2-wave-cb-base-antenna

Sure you can buy a Gain Master type but only on a very few percent of super low angle contacts in very weak conditions would it better the above in the real world.

I've been trying to work out some solutions for a vertical CB antenna but I just seem to hit dead ends with it due to the length the antenna has to be. 

The maximum length I can go vertical is 10 foot which is just not long enough for 27MHz. I thought about having one dipole leg going vertical and the other half going horizontal but then I run into issues with doing that because it means one leg of the dipole has to come indoors which just means a higher SWR due to reflection and also too close to the radio. 

Inverted V maybe another option to try but again that would have to be done indoors because of limited space outside and with each leg being so close to the walls means reflection, higher SWR. Its a bit of a pain so I think what I have now currently is the best I can really do with the Horizontal indoors even though its lousy for local but better than no antenna at all. 

I have also tried a mag mount with a mobile whip but that was even worse without having a large ground plane. 

A couple more things to try but I don't think I'm going to be able to improve my CB antenna by very much. It makes an OK DX antenna tho.

Ok so you have some space issues there.How about the Sirio Boomerang there are 2 types, the longer will be better.

There is a guy on here from Corfu I think he is called Babis3G who uses one with 4Watts on FM and manages to make contacts. On good days on SSB that should do ok, we are in the peak pretty much so these antennas would probably make ok contacts. Obviously they are not a high performance antenna in that situation
but you need work arounds really.

Compromised antenna for sure, but the longer one not too badly compromised.

https://www.sirioantenne.it/en/products/hf/boomerang-a-boomerang-w

I do concern a bit if your noise floor would increase with a vertical and that can be quite a problem in some domestic situations.

It might be worth making a cheap wire dipole to find out, bent bottom leg or not just to see what your noise level is with a vertical.

I used a Lemm boomerang (very similar to the Sirio) for 2 years while vacationing in the south of France and can definitely say that they are pretty good for what they are! Like above mentioned you should prefer the longer ones (they offer 2 versions). When the skip was opened I managed to achieve very nice long distance QSO as well as local chitchat. They’re quite narrow banded but can take up to 300W. A good choice in my opinion if you’re restricted in space.

I had a boomerang before and with a matcher (home made) I was able to extend the freq range that I could get a decent SWR on. It stood up to the elements and worked well. The only thing is that it needs al the height it can get. If you don't have much height I wouldn't recommend one. It needs at least the height of a two story house in my opinion. The inverted V could work well for you and you can of course slope it. It does become directional though when you do this.

Thanks. The boomerang sounds cool. I will get one if I find one.

I did try to build a boomerang antenna a while back but I could not get the SWR down on it and than the tank whip I used ended up getting caught on something then snapping while trying to get it out and then I gave up on it. Maybe the Sirio Boomerang will be a lot better and more flexible to get out. It looks good from the photo.

The horizontal antenna can't be sloped unfortunately because there is too much in the way indoors. I'm going to hunt for a Sirio Boomerang.

I'm also thinking about making a folded dipole for 11 meters. Its always good to have a few different types of antenna to play with and do comparison tests.

Another thing that crossed my mind was doing some wire reflectors so essentially creating a 3 element yagi beam indoors for DX.

Radio is a great hobby for experimenting. Some prefer the experimenting over using the best antenna they can compared to the DX itself. Conditions are what they are in any given moment that we cannot change.

I did plenty of testing within the practical scope of how I DX. I found it came down to some basics done very well in the end. Once I knew what performed best I don't experiment anymore. I like to know what I have put up is the best I could put up and then play radio without any regrets that I could have done more to make very marginal contacts.

The thought of thinking 'If only I had bothered to put the effort in to do X or Y I might have made that hard to make contact' is not where I want to be.

It may be tricky to get the SWR ok indoors, and any structural metallic objects, steel plates, girders, RSJ's. metallic window edging, may influence the pattern/SWR.

Maybe worth a try and find out, if you have the rooms space.