Topband: Close to earth Beverage.

[Tom Rauch]

This may all be true, but my measurements show that the
signals off the back and sides of  my beverages are
dominated by pick-up in the feed wire. If I am listening to
signal off the side, and cut the beverage off and just leave
the feed, the signal stays about the same. >>

Not here! If I cut the antenna off and only leave the
vertical end I can't hear anything but the very strongest
signals on 160 or 80. My noise floor drops to preamp
generated noise level.

As a matter of fact, that might be a reasonable and quick
test.

Perhaps maybe some people will cut the horizontal wires off
and note the noise level change. That would be useful
information. If the background noise barely changes, then
the vertical ends MIGHT be causing a problem with S/N ratio.
If background noise drops substantially, then the vertical
ends are probably of no concern. At my QTH when a Beverage
breaks off at the feed pole, the system goes virtually stone
deaf.

That would be good information to know.

<<There is little  that can be done about it, except as was
suggested at the start of this thread ,,,, lower the
beverage and trade off end effect for beverage
performance.>>

Actually there is something that can be done. Install phased
verticals. After all, the long horizontal wire in a Beverage
is really just functioning as a vertical.

73 Tom