Topband: Boring Report

[Steve Flood]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tree"

> The lesson learned about the Beverage is to not worry too much about 
> having
> the antenna go down into a ravine (small canyon).  I have two beverages 
> now
> that are about 180 meters long, and go down about 30 meters in height -
> and a 30 meter hill in front of them...  but they both work very well.

That's good to know because last year I had miserable luck getting my 
beverage experiment to work in sloping terrain.  In succession, I tried 
lengths of about 650, 850, 950, and 1100 ft up a fairly steep hillslope of 
15 to 18 degrees gradient (the slope continues for 2 miles), and for each 
time I lengthened it I optimized the termination resistance for a 
minimum-varying SWR.  It did not provide any improvement in S/N toward EU 
over my dipole or K9AY.  In fact it was rather "deaf" .  I had made an 
assumption that it was due to the steep run upslope.  I am now wondering 
about other factors - such as the heavy timber on the slope, and/or the 
rocky ground which forced me to use three 1/4-wave radials at the 
termination rather than a ground rod.  I believe my feedpoint was just fine. 
I think I will try this experiment again with the better EU signals this 
year (and landowner permission).

Steve KK7UV