[HamWAN PSDR] KU7M and his dBm

Dean Gibson AE7Q hamwan at ae7q.com
Fri May 23 14:33:42 PDT 2014


It may be "super weird", but I'm seeing the same thing.  My antenna is 
at 450';  the Paine antenna is at 750', and the distance between the two 
is almost exactly 26400'.  That's a rise of 300' in 26400', and the 
arc-sine of that ratio (0.0113636) is .65 degrees.  However, for optimum 
results, I have my antenna also aimed about 5 degrees above the 
horizon.  I don't remember the exact results when I aim at less than one 
degree, but it's significantly less.

On 2014-05-22 13:28, Bart Kus wrote:
> That's super weird.  You might wanna try moving the mount up/down the 
> mast while keeping the dish level.  And yes, microwaves can be 
> mysterious until you get experience with them.  That's one big 
> advantage of doing a project like this, it gives hams motivation to 
> learn how to deal with 6GHz and such.
>
> --Bart
>
>
> On 5/22/2014 1:03 PM, Kenny Richards wrote:
>> Bart,
>>
>> >Would you like some tower climbing / install help?  That's some crazy uptilt on the 
>> antenna picture you showed!
>>
>> Thank you for the offer, but I think it can wait until I'm healed. 
>> This was 'minor' knee surgery and I should be back to working out in 
>> six weeks, so I'm sure climbing the tower will be doable by then. We 
>> are at the very beginning of tower climbing season....
>>
>> The crazy uptilt required was the source of most of my headaches. 
>> From that exact location, I will hear nothing with the antenna at the 
>> normal 'level' mount point. You need to tilt it up about five degrees 
>> or more before CP will register.  It never occurred to me that it 
>> would have that big of impact.  Microwaves are weird....
>>
>> Thanks
>> Kenny
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 11:54 PM, Bart Kus <me at bartk.us 
>> <mailto:me at bartk.us>> wrote:
>>
>>     Dean,
>>
>>     I wouldn't limit your potential upside to 3dB with ... "spatial
>>     modulation".  :)  The vast majority of your path loss is NOT due
>>     to distance.  If you did achieve clear (or better) LoS, you could
>>     be looking at 30dB deltas.  Remember we've had Baldi-Tacoma (a
>>     far longer distance than yours) run at -57dBm during a signal
>>     survey.  K7JMM, across the Puget Sound (about 3x your distance)
>>     is running at -58dBm right now.
>>
>>     Kenny,
>>
>>     Would you like some tower climbing / install help? That's some
>>     crazy uptilt on the antenna picture you showed!
>>
>>     --Bart
>>
>>
>>
>>     On 5/21/2014 9:27 PM, Kenny Richards wrote:
>>>     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 at ae7q.com <mailto:hamwan at 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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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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