Dean,

I'm slightly less mad at you, but still a little peeved. :-)

The shot to Capital Park from my house goes through quite a few tree's in my immediate area. (All within a couple blocks from me) When I originally installed the tower about 10 years ago, I was able to see downtown from the top of it. Now I can't, due to the trees of the neighbor directly behind me and his neighbor.

That said, I don't actually have the HamWAN antenna mounted on the tower yet. I had to postpone that installation until my knee heals up. (Had the meniscus repaired in my left knee last week) Right now the antenna is mounted to a small mast at the apex of the roof. (It is sharing the mast with a VHF/UHF vertical)

I thought that I'd posted links to these pictures before, but I guess not.

Picture of current installation: http://www.ku7m.net/drop/KU7M_HamWAN.JPG

Picture of what I'm shooting through to get to Capital Park: http://www.ku7m.net/drop/KU7M_CPView.JPG

And just because it makes me laugh, the installation from the first night it started working: http://www.ku7m.net/drop/DeckAntennaMount.jpg

The difference in signal strength from the antenna being on the deck railing to its current location is ~5 dB. The height difference between the to location is about eight to ten feet. When moving the antenna to the roof the first time, I had originally installed it on a mast located at the far east side of the roof. In this spot I could not hear CP at all. By moving the antenna to the mast located in the center of the house (which is about 20-25 feet west), the signal appeared and has so far been the best location. I ordered another mast mounting kit for the eve located at the far west side of the house. When I'm feeling better I'll install it and see if the signal improves again when moving west.

I don't have many data points on the impact of wind on the signal strength. I did check it on Sunday when a system blew through which was causing the trees to noticeable move. But I wasn't seeing much change in the signal strength. (maybe 1 db?)

Thanks

Kenny

On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 7:44 PM, Dean Gibson AE7Q <hamwan@ae7q.com> wrote:

First of all, Kenny: welcome! Now that you have a HamWAN connection, I hope you are no longer mad at me. Where is your antenna (inside/outside, height above ground, etc)?

On a related but more serious side, do you have a direct line-of-sight path to Capitol Hill, or do you go through trees? The reason I ask is, my path goes through some trees. When it is windy, that causes my RX signal level (dBm value) to vary about 5 dB (mostly down). I have wondered whether mounting my antenna higher would help my overall value (of course it would help when it is windy).

My average RX signal level is 80 dBm (no winds), and yours appears to be 83 dBm. However, you are twice as far from your cell site as I am from mine, and since power falls off as the square of the distance, I'd expect (in similar configurations and siting) that you would experience a 6 dB difference. Since the difference is only 3 dB, that suggests that (all things being equal, which they never are) I might gain at most 3 dB by moving the antenna.

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