km1h: Re: TopBand: Slinky Beverage

[km1h @ juno.com]

As the originator of the Slinky Beverage some 10 years ago I will say it
works very well indeed. It may not equal a 2 wave wire version on 160 but
it does very well in a limited space. 
There were many discussions here last year on the subject . One person
went to great lengths to explain why it was no good. As you have noted,
others have tried it and like them. I view it as a helically wound slow
wave antenna. Since helically wound antennas have been used for
everything from mobile whips to 40M beams I find no reason to doubt their
use here. 

My own system uses 5 large diameter ones in series and stretched over
175'  At the far end I terminate with a 500 Ohm resistor and run 3 135'
radials, one directly in front and the other 2 roughly 10 degrees either
side. The terminating xfmr is the familiar 9:1 balun. For me the Slinky
has a better S/N ratio than a 1 wave wire used for comparison. The f/b
exceeds 25dB.  Signal levels are so good I rarely use a preamp and when I
do the gain is set at 10dB or less. I had no trouble hearing the VK0, FR,
ZS8, or anything else this past season. 

I have not taken any impedence measurements or tried to get into some
theoretical funk over it. For me, they work fine 160 thru 30M. Neither
have I used more or less Slinkys or stretched over different lengths. I
just used what fit my property requirements. I would really like to here
from others that have experimented.

There were several posts to the reflector today that got my interest up
again. I just might do that test with a FS meter and try to determine
reasonance and the PROPER terminating resistance. The other comment about
galvanized wire also was intriguing since the Slinky is Cadmium plated
steel.  Time to buy a can off Deep Woods Off and go play again!

73....Carl   KM1H   Only 262 DXCC on TopBand and 311 on 80



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