Hi Chuck,
Recipe for a cool Beverage:
Get 580' of insulated wire. Gauge is not real important. Figure out
what direction you want to hear better and using a compass or your wife or
local law enforcement agencies string out the wire in a somewhat straight
line going over at least semi-permanent objects that will keep the wire
somewhere between 4-8' off of the ground. Slope each end down to the
ground for the last 60' or so. Drive a 4' long ground rod at each end. At
the far end (toward the DX) hook the wire to a 1 or 2 watt carbon resistor
that is 400-600 ohms or so. I use some 560 ohm ones that a friend at a TV
shop had. Using a smallish hose clamp with a dog-bone insulator as strain
relief works very well here.
On the close end of the wire, slope it down too and hook it to a 9:1
transformation box (can be made easily..or even easier can buy a ZJ box or
a model 180A I.C.E. Beverage box. Connect the box to another 4' ground rod
you've pounded into the dirt and connect your well shielded coax to the
box also. Run the coax back to the shack along the ground.
Some thoughts:
1) 16 Ga insulated wire seems to work OK. Smaller stuff works just
fine. The bigger stuff seems to always fall down.
2) You can put 100 ferrite beads, like FB-73-2401 from Amidon over a
short hunk of RG58 between the Beverage box and the run of coax to the
shack. This can be done later to spiff the pattern if you so desire.
3) Keep the coax run going back to the shack on the ground. If you put
it up in the air. it'll act like a Beverage too screwing everything up.
4) Try to keep the Beverage 1/4 wavelength away from your TX antenna.
5) You can cross other wires or small diameter metallic objects, if
you keep at angles to them.
6) Don't run the thing through the house, It really upsets the XYL and
increases extraneous noise pick-up, both on and off the air.
7) Step-ladders and branches are excellent support structures to keep
the wire up in the air.
8) The wire does not need to be taut and horizontally level. Just make
it high enough so that marauding local wildlife and children can't knock
it down without some serious effort.
Let me know how it turns out.
73 and I remain,
Lew ex-n7avk
Lew Sayre W7EW/W7AT lew@teleport.com
P.O.Box 3110 Fax 503-391-2258
Salem, Oregon 97302 160M thru 1296MHz
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