Topband: beverage question

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

It is not the best way to feed them normally, but try feeding the
beverages DIRECTLY to the coax to see if you hear signals.  Also use
the AIM 4170 to sweep the coax lines by themselves 1) with a matching
termination at the antenna end, and with an open termination at the
antenna end.

Many beverage transformers have been destroyed by a lightning-induced
surge on the antenna. Lightning can induce many kilovolts on a 500
foot beverage. This same kind of a surge can vaporize or short coax
shield and center conductor on smaller coax, particularly RG-6
variants.

73, Guy.

On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 9:38 AM, Jorge Diez - CX6VM
<cx6vm.jorge at adinet.com.uy> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>
>
> My beverages are 2.5 years old.
>
> USA beverage is 550 ft long and Europe beverage is 800 feet long
>
> They worked well when I build them and all the 2008.
>
>
>
> In 2009 they where unused and  in June 2009 I reconditioned them, but seems
> that they are not working as they did when I build them the first time.
>
>
>
> Now with the help of my friend Dale N3BNA that is in my QTH, we have
> replaced the drop lines and cleaned all the contacts at the transformer
> ends.  Still they do not work well. In fact the only signals are on the
> transmit antenna, with static crashes over S-9 to 20 over.  We need the
> beverage in these conditions.
>
>
>
> We know the beverages both have a low SWR, and Dale has tested them with AIM
> 4170 analyser. .the beverages apparently are OK (no broken coax) but we
> cannot hear any signals.  Today we have replaced the drop lines and
> resistors at the terminal ends of both beverages and cleaned the contacts
> and ground rod.
>
>
>
> We don,t  know what else we can do to make these beverages to work better.
> We are using transformer boxes from DX engineering, but have replaced one
> with a box made by KD9SV, and still no luck.
>
>
>
> We have other transformer boxes ( a fat cylinder made by K9AY and some big
> boxes from Array Solutions).  We will keep trying but would appreciate your
> advice, especially to know why the antennas are good in the analyser, but we
> cannot hear anything.
>
>
>
> Thanks es 73
>
>
>
> Jorge CX6VM
>
> Dale CX/N3BNA
>
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