Topband: Beverage question

[Jeff Maass]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: topband-bounces at contesting.com 
> [mailto:topband-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Clint Talmadge
> Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 9:51 AM
> To: Topband
> Subject: Topband: Beverage question
> 
> I have been reading on Beverage antennas in an effort to 
> install at least one here at my home. The problem I have run 
> into is that my house sits on top of a hill and for a large 
> part is surrounded by woods. In John Devoldere's Low Band 
> DXing book (second edition) he states to NOT run a beverage 
> through the woods. 

Clint:

I don't recall what reason ON4UN gave for the recommendation to not run a Beverage through
the woods, but the antenna will work fine running through the woods. Run the antenna in
the direction you want to favor, and consider using a two-wire Beverage so you can get two
directions while you are stringing wire.

The only problem with having the Beverage in the woods that I can think of is that
branches *will* fall on the wire over time, and so *will* require regular repairs.
"Walking the Beverage" is a normal task for many Topbanders before a major contest,
looking for damage and repairing. We just went through this at the PJ2T station on
Curacao, where "Walking the Beverage" for our European antenna requires 2-days of hacking
through cactus and spiny-bushes with a machete and clippers. We found a spot where one of
the (rare) tall bushes fell across the wire sometime in the past 8 months and fixed it.

It's hard to put up a Beverage that does not work! Nothing is critical in it's
installation. Keep it mostly-straight, make it long enough, make it high enough so deer
and people won't walk into it, terminate it with a value of resistance something close to
the published value (or use the reflection transformer for the 2-wire version), and don't
sweat the rest. Any receiving antenna is much, much better than no receiving antenna!

73,

Jeff Maass  K8ND

Station Manager  PJ2T, 
  Caribbean Contesting Consortium

CCC Web Site: http://www.pj2t.org
 
PJ2T Slide Show: http://www.k8nd.com/Radio/DELARA_PPT2.pdf