Topband: VK9WWI Report

[Tom Rauch]

From: "Milt, N5IA" <n5ia at zia-connection.com>

> Some posts have already eluded to proper operation of the 
> Beverage antenna
> NEAR salt water, etc.  The key in all these reported 
> applications is that
> the soil/rock immediately underneath the Beverage wire 
> that composes the
> other half of the traveling wave transmission line and 
> creates the signal
> tilt so that it is detected in the antenna wire, is NOT 
> saturated with the
> salt water.
>
> The soil/rock is enough of a poor conductor, with the 
> highly conductive
> material far enough away, to allow the principle upon 
> which the Beverage
> works to be in affect.

Good thing you pointed that out Milt!! People were 
extrapolating the results to other situations that do not 
apply.

It is the ground BELOW the antenna and immediately to the 
sides that determines if the antenna will function, and it 
really isn't even mostly "wave tilt" on higher bands. Wave 
front tilt in the purist sense of the words mainly applies 
to VLF antennas.

The Beverage requires loss or imperfect ground below and 
immediately around the antenna, in particular for long 
distances off the side of the antenna. The distance of 
concern is at most only several wire heights for HF.

Let's not turn the fact some Beverage systems work NEAR 
saltwater into a "Beverages work well OVER highly conductive 
ground" conclusion.

73 Tom