Topband: Best Height Above Ground for a Beverage RX Antenna

[Ford Peterson]

On Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:07:04 -0500, Tom Rauch wrote:

>but the lower ones are noticeably better on 40 meters.

To which Jim responded...

> Yes. My Beverages are up around 8 ft so that they clear the deer. 
> They're good on 160, OK on 80, and almost useless on 40. 
>
> 73,
>
> Jim K9YC

I have a 510' bidirectional pair at 8' over pretty good ground.  They play
as you would expect a somewhat short beverage to play on 160M.  They are
somewhat better on 80M.  And impressive on 40M.  But then, I took the time
to ensure that the transformers were truly wideband.  In fact, I get good
performance on 30M and reasonable F/R on 20M.  Not that I use them on the
upper bands as I have no noise problem and other gain antennas that work
well.  

I note that the "almost useless on 40" comment may be due to reasons that go
well beyond height above apparent ground...

Ford-N0FP
ford at cmgate.com