Topband: Beverages

[Charlie Young]

K6XYZ said:

 

> I would never have believed that I could hear what I can hear with just 2
> clip leads jammed into the antenna port of the receiver. It's amazing....

 

Well, it might take 4 clip leads to optimize performance  :-)  

 

Joking aside, with some folks questioning whether it is worthwhile to put up a beverage wire substantially shorter than 1 wavelength on 160M, my experience is that it was worthwhile to put up one 300' long to the south.  Nothing else that was installed at my place would allow me to hear the weaker DX.  This includes 4 separate inverted L transmit antennas, 80 meter verticals and dipoles, HF yagis, even a terminated rx loop. 

 

My xmit L's are installed in pairs, back to back, with one side fed while the other acts as a parasitic reflector.  These are simple, non-optimized antennas, with a couple of elevated radials on each one.  The radiating side is situated at the cusp of the hilltop, with the ground sloping steeply off in front of the antenna in the desired direction.  They exhibit, at times, significant front to back ratio on receive.  However, they can't touch the beverage wires for receiving the weak signals, even with the short beverages. 

 

There is a length where the beverage wire will be too short to help, but I don't know what that length is.  150' or 200'?     300' is my shortest beverage antenna. 

 

73 Charlie N8RR  

 		 	   		  
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