TopBand: BEVERAGE PHENOMENON?

[George Guerin]

--IMA.Boundary.958706858
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Description: cc:Mail note part

Bill, VE3CSK, wrote:

"The sleet storm which came through Southern Ontario Friday night and 
Saturday AM completely wiped out my Beverages-all of them!  After the power 
cam back on last night, I did some listening and heard and worked ZS4TX, 
heard ZS5LB, ZS6UT and others using what was left of the east Beverage 
(about 75' on the poles, another 100 feet down in the creek and broken off 
on the other side-no termination, of course!)
Now what I found interesting is that ALL of these were about 15-20 db better 
on the remains of my Beverage than on either the vertical, the loop or one 
ewe which somehow stayed up.
Was this just propagation?  Or does it prove that ANY Beverage-type antenna 
will result in some improvement over various other antennas?  I wish I could 
terminate that chunk and put back up a similar chunk to the west and then do 
some comparisons.
     
Anyone care to comment?  Anyone else had similar results on very short 
Beverage antennas?  Was it the dreaded "aqua-effect"?  Or was it just 
propagation?  Guess I'll try again tonight to see if I get similar results.
     
The wire I used was #16 vinyl covered, and it just disintegrated with 1/2" of 
ice on it.  Copperweld would have survived, I think, but 4x880 plus 2x450 ft 
of copperweld is VERY expensive.  Someone wrote earlier about "copper-coated 
fence wire"...any idea if its conductivity remotely approaches stranded 
copper wire, or where such can be obtained?
     
I would appreciate any suggestions on this.. From what I read earlier, the 
regular galvanized fence wire isn't worth a damn.  These Beverages worked 
gangbusters, especially after I placed a 10db broadband preamp with emitter 
follower at the termination, and I would like to retain the performance and 
build in a little resitance to the type of weather we get all too often in 
this part of the country.
     
Thanks and 73,
Bill, VE3CSK"
     
I lost a 500 ft beverage at 120 degrees, nominally 12 ft 
high that broke at about 200 feet from the feed point.  It 
was about 75 feet long at 10 feet off the ground and 125 
feet on the grass.   It did not work at all!

Another 500 ft beverage at 70 degrees, same height, worked 
OK with some ice on it.

Both were 18 gauge stranded with vinyl insulation.

I was able to splice and reerect the 120 degree beverage on 
Sunday.  It worked well..  Heard and worked ZS8IR on 80 cw. 
Earlier he was well above the noise on 160 on the same 
beverage, as repaired.

Neither beverage is terminated, as I use them for Pacific 
DX in the mornings.  Both have 9:1 UnUns on 1.125 OD 
ferrite cores and are fed with high quality, double 
shielded cable tv style RG-59 (RG-6?)

Hope this helps.        George, K8GG
--IMA.Boundary.958706858--

--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions:              topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-topband@contesting.com
Sponsored by:             Akorn Access, Inc. & N4VJ / K4AAA