Joe,
For a simple Beverage, you just point the antenna (unfed end) at the target.
For length, "longer is better" is approximately true, but the ideal lengths are
about 1 to 2 wavelengths. Much longer than that, and phased shorter Beverages
work better. Much shorter than that, and you might as well use some other type
of RX antenna. One Bev can work pretty well on both 160 and 80, and will
occasionally be useful on other bands also. During spring/summer precip
static, common in KS, the Bev is often my only usable RX antenna on ANY HF band!
A Beverage has negative gain. But you don't care about absolute strength, you
only care about S/N, as any modern radio has enough gain on 160M for the
smallish Beverage signal to be fine. Some, like me, use a preamp just so the
various RX antenna gains are approximately equal when switching between them.
A 15 dB preamp brings my 600 ft Bev signal strengths to the level of my TX
Inv-L on 160. But you don't need it.
Beverages are not in the great favor they once were, mostly due to the advent
of excellent vertical arrays. But they still have the big advantage of being
the simplest RX antenna one can imagine, that nearly always works as described
without difficulty, assuming you have the space. And cheap!
Reversible Beverages are only slightly more complicated and give you another
direction with no more space required. Lots of good articles out there for a
Google.
73,
Drew K3PA
________________________________
------------------------------
Message: 18
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2019 13:25:25 -0500
From: Joe <nss@mwt.net>
To: Wes <wes_n7ws@triconet.org>, topband@contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: BOG height
Message-ID: <cb0a992a-8c3a-ebf7-6925-180fae8c0dba@mwt.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
beverages have always fascinated me. But I have never had the property
to have one.
I might now, BUT, how do you know how long and what direction to lay it
out to maximize signal to the desired direction?
I assume the longer it is, the higher gain it has and more towards the
ends the lobe is?
Joe WB9SBD
_________________
Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
|