Topband: Question abt gain in bi- vs uni-directional Beverage

[Barry N1EU]

Fritz, for the last year I've been remotely switching my single wire 
Beverage in uni and bi-directional modes.  There are more knowledgable folks 
on this reflector who can address the technical particulars, but my 
understanding and experience is that the gain is identical in the two modes 
but in the unidirectional mode (when properly terminated) the s/n ratio is 
significantly better because you're cutting off all the received noise 
energy from the nulled quadrants.

To answer your next to last question, you need uni-directionality because 
you need every dB of s/n ratio you can muster in working dx on 160M.  
Hearing is everything (or at least half anyway).

For my second Beverage, I went with 2-wire uni/uni and this is vastly 
preferable.  And the single wire Beverage will eventually be replaced with 
Ladder line, but in the meantime the uni/bi-directional switching is quite 
useful although it certainly adds a degree of complexity to tempt Murphy  
;-)

GL/73,
Barry  N1EU



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