The AM Forum
March 28, 2024, 04:43:58 AM *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
 
   Home   Help Calendar Links Staff List Gallery Login Register  
Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Beverage Antenna Redux  (Read 1728 times)
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
KL7OF
Member

Offline Offline

Posts: 2313



« on: June 17, 2022, 03:14:28 PM »

I have 2 beverage antennas that haven't been used in a while.  one runs thru the trees and the other is out in the open. Both are 12ga copper coated steel wire stretched tight between 2 supports with no center supports.  300ft and 200ft long...  Both about 5-6 ft above ground.  one is E-W the other N-S. Both unterminated (for now) 9:1 transformers with 75 ohm CATV tri-ax cable to the shack.. I  got the antennas brushed out and cleaned up all the connections and they check out on the analyzer..   I have a question about the grounding....There has been much written and much discussion about how and where to ground bev antennas and feedlines to avoid problems and ground loops etc...I am interested in what others are doing and how they are doing it and how it is working ..If you are using a beverage, Id be interested in your setup and your comments.   Right now I am only grounding the shield of the coax where it enters the shack,  Thanks   Steve
Logged
W1ITT
Member

Offline Offline

Posts: 573


« Reply #1 on: June 17, 2022, 03:55:23 PM »

If you do a search on Beverage antennas, there is at least an evening's reading.  Much of it is true but some is hogwash.  Tom W8JI is a pretty sharp engineer and has done the homework.

https://w8ji.com/beverages.htm

One thing about Beverages is that they "want" to work, but well built ones work better and the side and rear discrimination is better.  One trick that I have used for grounding is to take 15 or 20 feet of chicken wire or welded wire fence  laid on the ground, with a pigtail soldered on,  and use it with a rod for the grounds. It's aperiodic and provides lots of capacitance to "ground" whatever that may be at your site.  Milt W5IA (sk) came to Maine to use W1IMD's full size 160m quad for a contest and he brought some DX Engineering reversible Beverage kits.  We put out an array of them on a ledgey rocky ridge, using chicken wire ground screens and no ground rods as they weren't possible, at the termination points and it all worked FB.
73 de Norm W1ITT
Logged
DMOD
AC0OB - A Place where Thermionic Emitters Rule!
Contributing
Member
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 1768


« Reply #2 on: June 17, 2022, 08:48:59 PM »

I have 2 beverage antennas that haven't been used in a while.  one runs thru the trees and the other is out in the open. Both are 12ga copper coated steel wire stretched tight between 2 supports with no center supports.  300ft and 200ft long...  Both about 5-6 ft above ground.  one is E-W the other N-S. Both unterminated (for now) 9:1 transformers with 75 ohm CATV tri-ax cable to the shack.. I  got the antennas brushed out and cleaned up all the connections and they check out on the analyzer..   I have a question about the grounding....There has been much written and much discussion about how and where to ground bev antennas and feedlines to avoid problems and ground loops etc...I am interested in what others are doing and how they are doing it and how it is working ..If you are using a beverage, Id be interested in your setup and your comments.   Right now I am only grounding the shield of the coax where it enters the shack,  Thanks   Steve

My Beverage is actually a sloper (12' at transformer to 4' at termination support) but does very well with my Mohawk receiver. The wire is #14 stranded and insulated and has held up well to the high winds.

The transformer I made myself and put it in a 4X4 plastic box with an SO-239 at one end and thumbscrew terminals for the other two connections.

It has less noise than my vertical.

BTW, we need more AM activity on 20 meters.

Phil - AC0OB

* Beverage Antenna and Tranasformer.pdf (20.55 KB - downloaded 98 times.)
Logged

Charlie Eppes: Dad would be so happy if we married a doctor.
Don Eppes: Yeah, well, Dad would be happy if I married someone with a pulse.NUMB3RS   Smiley
w9jsw
Two shots of Whisky
Contributing
Member
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 592



« Reply #3 on: June 18, 2022, 07:45:15 AM »

I have a long white PVC fence along the front of my rural property. I attached a 600ft run of electric fence wire along the back of the top horizontal run with electric fence insulators. One end is connected to a BN-2402-43 binocular with 2 turns on the primary and 7 turns on the secondary. This fence wire is soldered to one side of the secondary. Other side of transformer secondary is grounded with a 4ft copper rod. The primary is connected to 500ft of 75 ohm quad shielded buried CATV coax that runs to the shack. Not grounded at the antenna. The far end is terminated with 470 ohms to a 4ft ground rod. Soil here is not rocky and generally moist.

It is very low noise. On 80M/40M my S level on the main antenna (fan dipole) is S4-S5. The beverage is S0-S1.

It should have the best performance to the east, but seems to do ok to the west for local nets in that direction (MOKAN) and it works fairly well there, most of the time beating the fan dipole due to the noise difference.

I plan to run another line to the N-S if I can find a suitable path.

75ohm direct bury CATV wire is cheap and works FB. So far the moles have left it alone. It was easy to bury.

I am very pleased with the beverage.
Logged
KL7OF
Member

Offline Offline

Posts: 2313



« Reply #4 on: June 22, 2022, 01:17:05 PM »

Thanks for the replies....  I haven't terminated the N-S Beverage yet.  and it is still only the feedline braid grounded at the shack.  I did check my feedline for "snake" antenna characteristics and found it clean...  Here's something I found interesting..  I have always thought of my beverage antennas most useful on the low bands..I have used them on 20M before..  I was using the N-S bev on 6 METERS during a single hop opening from WA to CA NV AZ  the other day and it was less noisy  and higher signal strength than the 4 element Yagi pointed the same way...  Magic band?
Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

AMfone - Dedicated to Amplitude Modulation on the Amateur Radio Bands
 AMfone © 2001-2015
Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines
Page created in 0.052 seconds with 19 queries.