Topband: beverage antennas

[Garry & Yelena]

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Ed:

At the suggestion of the Navy, which had noted directional effects in
long wires, Harold Beverage of RCA performed the original measurements
on an unterminated wire laid on the ground along Moriches Road, a
nine-mile dirt road in far eastern Suffolk County, Long Island. They
measured current by driving the antenna at one end,  periodically
stopping to cut the wire to insert an ammeter. He and his colleagues
then elevated the wire by attaching it to telephone poles along the
roadside and repeated the measurements. The ammeter was a huge affair,
carried in a four-door Ford.

They then had the bright idea to terminate the antenna. Beverage
determined the termination empirically, while one of his engineers, the
brilliant Phil Carter, calculated it, using the new-fangled mathematics
at which he was skilled. They both arrived at something like 450
ohms--in use to this day. 

I am sure the antenna was subsequently utilized in West (by God)
Virginia, but it started life on the sand barrens of eastern Long
Island, and was initially used with the huge VLF station at Rocky Point.

There are two wonderful interviews with Beverage in the IEEE Archives,
part of the IEEE web page. One was conducted when he was a youngster in
his seventies. The other was obtained when he was 99--just before his
death at 100 in 1993.

Beverage and Carter worked for C.W. Hansell, who held more patents than
anyone but Edison. Hansell's son George, a colleague of mine, 
introduced me to Carter's son, who was also an antenna scientist. These
two men provided a lot of wonderful material on RCA/Rocky Point and the
engineering giants who worked there.

Garry



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