Topband: Beverage Wire Height and Termination Resistor Protection

[Terry Posey]

Beverage Wire Height:

 

For decades now I have read numerous accounts of Beverage performance
attributed to wire gauge, conductor material, insulation, ground type,
height above ground, on ground, whether to zigzag, whether to follow
contours, and whether trees suck the signal out them.   No doubt all of
these installation "parameters" influence a particular Beverage's
performance to some degree.  And with carefully controlled A/B experiments
you could probably vary parameters and convince yourself of the relative
influences particular parameters exhibit on your particular A/B antenna test
bed.   However, I doubt that any universal absolute truths will result from
such interesting work.  At best, you can hope to develop some general
Beverage installation guidelines (there are plenty in the literature) that
should enhance your radio reception success.  

 

In my experience, I have found that a Beverage antenna is extremely tolerant
of its electrical and mechanical installation specifics.  By its nature, a
Beverage antenna is a high-impedance, high-loss, and physically large
wavelength structure with low susceptibility to mutual-coupling effects.  I
believe it is difficult to disrupt a Beverage's operation through
introduction of minor impedance mismatches or by small mechanical
deviations.

 

Termination Resistor Protection:

 

Now this is a real interesting thread.  I like to buy those cheap plastic 3"
x 4" project boxes at Dayton and install the high-energy dissipation
resistor on a terminal strip on the inside.  Then I drill a small hole on
each end of the box just large enough to allow the plastic covered #14
Beverage wire to enter and exit the box.  Then I drill a small drain hole
under the box.  If lightning, a bear, or deer destroys the termination, I
merely build another one.

 

73

 

Terry K4RX