Topband: Lesson Learned & Coax for 2-wire beverage

[John Rogers]

>Out working on Beverage #2 the EW unit I shortened up the
>vertical downlead wires for the control box on Beverage #1 the NS unit
>to about 6 inches. Tonight at my SS ES1WN had maybe 15dB more FB than
>any signal ever I heard from Europe.
>There's something, nay, a lot! to keeping the vertical downleads as
>short as possible or even eliminating them.
>73 Art

Could the reactance of a 5ft earth lead (albeit small) be unbalancing the 
feed and adversely affecting termination in reverse direction?

Results with 2-wire beverages using balanced line appear to be variable and 
unpredictable. The theory works but difficult in practice. In general , 
perhaps because of the problems, would it not be better to use some light 
coax (e.g. CATV steel coax) as the 2-direction beverage wire?
73
John