A close friend asked me recently – “Is ham radio better in winter?” I almost gave a quick, decisive answer. But a few seconds of thought made me realize that it was a complex question. And I had a few questions of my own. Like, what frequency? At what time of day? With what mode? With a horizontal antenna? Or a vertical? Or a circularly polarized antenna?
I quickly realized that there are a lot of things to consider in answering the question – “Is ham radio better in winter?”. One thought is that there are no (or relatively few) lightning storms in the winter in the northern hemisphere in winter. Safer for outdoors antennas? No lightning strikes! But what about ice storms and snow buildup? And we seem to trade the electrical noise of lighting storms for additional electrical line noise. Temperatures change metal parts. Tolerances that were tight in high heat become less so in the cold. That can cause electrical noise as electricity arcs.
And what of that expensive rotator for that big beam antenna? It works really well in the summer. But is it frozen in the winter? And if you use a long wire antenna, have you taken into consideration the loading of ice and snow at various times in the winter + wind loading? Is that a good trade off for not having a flock of birds holding tight to it while you try to transmit in the summer?
Now, what about the angle of the sun? That changes each season as the earth wobbles through it’s annual orbit. That will tend to change the level of the atmosphere that ionizes. And it probably also changes the angle of that ionization. Does that change the reflection angle of our signals? Probably. These effects will have different effects on different frequencies. Ham radio operators operate on a wide range of frequencies. So – it depends.
There may be more or fewer people on the airwaves in different seasons. I think in the summer there may be more mobile contacts as people are out and about. Probably more people hunkered down at home during howling winter snow storms. And which wind is worse – summer thunderstorm or winter blizzard? Nearly a toss-up, although I think summer a summer tornado takes the cake… These can have effects on antennas.
The number of hours of daylight and night change during the year. What band do you want to operate on – and is it best during daylight, dusk, dawn or night?
So I am not sure that there really is a quick answer to the question – “Is ham radio better in the winter?”. My cop out is… “It depends…”.
What do you think? Stay radio active!
Jon Kreski, AB9NN
http://www.HamRadioResources.com
http://www.Twitter.com/AB9NN
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