Turn on you computer speakers, the sound you hear is my Top-Band signal in the Island of St.Martin in the Caribbien, watch the photo of FS/AH8DX 160m. loop antenna standing in the balcony of the Hotel where he worked CQWW SSB 2002.

FS/AH8DX was 59+ in CT1.

(If you need CT1 in Topband let me know to my e-mail: zemurtosa@mail.telepac.pt )

The edges have always made me wonder about propagation and bands behaviour, for years I have been active in 50 and 144 Mhz having the chance to study the Tropo-duct, Sporadic-e, Meteor-scatter and F2 phenomena in the higher frequencies but the lower-end was still a mistery to me.  Indeed until 1999 I had only a few 160m. QSO's, nevertheless the Low-bands issue came up during one of those dinners where Dick PA3FQA, Lopes CT1CJJ and I talked about DX, Dick had an Inverted L and worked over 130 DXCC's in a year time , this looked good !

In a couple of days we had designed single feedline inverted L's for 80 and 160m. (with no radials at all) and made them work. Having salt-water 1,7m. underground really helped keeping SWR flat and in that same "summer night" nomatter QRN levels I was able to work a couple of CX's and a PY.

Comparing the Inverted L's against the Inverted V antenna for the same bands I can say now that the 160m. Inverted L performs much better than the dipole, but in 80m. the dipole has much better RX and TX.

Working conditions for Topband:

RX/TX: Kenwood TS-870

Antenna: Inverted L

Linear amp.: Ameritron AL-1500 (1.5 Kwatt)

and ofcourse my Bencher CW paddle.

DXCC's worked until August 2006: 204 Entities

DXCC's Confirmed until August 2006: 201 Entities

(in the photo you can see my Low-band inverted L's hanging in the top of my tower #1)

And here is my firsts list in 1.8 Mhz:

CU in TopBand,  José  CT1EEB

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