> New to beverage antennas, I've been reading your posts
> with interest. It
> seems all agree that lower is better. My problem is that I
> have to have
> a 10-12 ft high beverage (people and Elk). I was wondering
> if anyone has
> tried to put a grounded wire 2-3 ft below their entire
> beverage. As Milt
> did over his arroyo runs. Would this change the apparent
> height above
> ground?
Pete,
A conductor below an antenna will always oppose the
radiation (and reception) of a wire above it. It does not
really establish "height" in a Beverage, because a single
wire or a few wires would be tightly coupled to earth and
very lossy. A Beverage depends on high earth losses to work,
and it depends on a reasonably wide lossy area to establish
effective height and performance. It just isn't what is
immediately under the wire, but what is also off to the
sides a good distance.
That's actually what started this whole thread. The Beverage
Handbook incorrectly suggests installing a "return wire"
below a Beverage. That clearly is a terrible idea. If the
wire worked with low loss and really "returned signals" from
the far end (which is also a false concept) the wire would
cancel all Beverage-mode reception.
The only reason it doesn't stop the antenna from working is
because a wire closer to earth has significantly more loss
than the wire placed higher. We all know (or should know) a
Beverage stops working over very good ground, so why would
someone go out of their way to make the ground below the
antenna move in that direction?
Unfortunately when something bad makes it into print it just
never dies.
73 Tom
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