Antenna-direction

[Jens Romeikat]

Hallo,
It can be read that Alexanderson antenna was build to transmit
towards the USA.
But the line of the antenna-towers points more towards Spain.
(Google Maps)
How does that come?
Regards
Jens Romeikat

Topic

[Ola Hernvall]

The SAQ-antenna is almost omnidirectional at 17.2 kHz. At for example 50 kHz the radiation pattern is a figure of eight, perpendicular to the tower line. The great circle to New York can be seen on the following link (Grimeton is situated 60 km south of Gothenburg Airport): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bzSZ_YCDWKwsE8wIkxdX77fk8TLaYJUZ/view?usp=sharing

[Erik Thomsen]

An Youtube video(in Swedish)may give the explanation why the antenna points too far north.
They wanted to have a ‘clear view’ over the horizon (north of Scotland and Denmark)

Erik

[Jens Romeikat]

Thank for the information !
By the way:
To hear “Now we are on the air!” in the youtoube-live video
yesterday and see the first lines the same time on web-sdr:
unforgettable !!!

Jens

[Erik Thomsen]

I take it the main radiation is perpendicular to the line of masts,
but that would hit somewhere in the north of Canada(seen on a globe).
Hälsninger
Erik

[AlexanderSAQ]

Dear Jens,
The antenna towers are directed towards Long Island, outside New York, where the receiving station was located.
My theory is that its because Googe Maps uses the Mercator projection type for its map images. It gives accurate ‘zoomed-in views’ but this projection also distorts a ‘zoomed-out view’, which will make it look like the antenna towers are pointing in another direction.
Maybe there is a better explantion out there.
Regards,
Fredrik / AlexanderSAQ

[Author]

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