Topband: Beverage Woes

[Gary Smith]

I used WD1A wire for my reversible beverages over a salt marsh and 
had terrible luck with them. They were incredibly noisy, more so than 
the INV-L was and I gave them up for a HI-Z triangular array which 
was much quieter.

It is possible the tall marsh reeds (Phragmites) blowing in the wind 
close to & in some cases touching the WD-1A wire may have created a 
static that caused the background noise. But both of my reversible 
beverages going NW/SE & NE/SW had the same ugly characteristics. I'm 
now using the WD1A for my INV-L wire and have much in reserve.

YMMV

73,

Gary 


> I use military WD1A telephone wire which cost almost nothing but UPS
> for a 1 
> km unused reel.
> 
> At 500-750' for Beverages the extra RF loss tilts the wave more and
> and has 
> excellent directivity as 2 wire reversibles. I use black electric
> fence 
> insulators into trees at convenient intervals and the wire slides
> thru them 
> and have removed many large limbs after storms with no breakage. The
> wire 
> looks like a sine wave with maybe 2' between peaks and valleys. Both
> ends 
> use rope around trees and insulators made from soft delrin rod with
> a few 
> holes drilled to loop the wire thru in 3 very loose passes. After a
> couple 
> of storms I take up some slack and get ready for some more limbs
> bouncing on 
> the wire. Nothing broken going on the 4th year now for the oldest
> one.
> 
> I suspect that the telephone wire, and galvanized fence wire would
> work well 
> over salt marshes and other places of very high ground conductivity
> to add 
> wave slope AND directivity.
> 
> Carl
> KM1H
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Les Kalmus" <w2lk at bk-lk.com>
> To: <topband at contesting.com>
> Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2013 10:21 AM
> Subject: Re: Topband: Beverage Woes
> 
> 
> >I use ladder line from the Wireman and from Davis RF. I think the
> >conductors are copper plated solid steel.
> > I bought 1/4" thick 2" wide strips of acrylic from McMaster Carr
> and made 
> > a pair of clamps of 6" long pieces by cutting grooves for the wire
> > thickness, two holes for ss bolts and one for a rope.
> > These clamp the ends tightly and the acrylic is useable
> outdoors.
> > The ladder line is supported every 50 -75 feet by a 3-4" piece of
> pvc wide 
> > enough to easily pass the ladder line and with a large and small
> hole in 
> > it. The small hole is for a screw into a convenient tree and the
> large is 
> > to pass the screwhead.
> > Where there were no trees, mainly a swampy area, I used metal
> fence posts 
> > with a piece of pvc over the post with a bolt through limit how
> far down 
> > it slides on the post and a T on the top end. The ladder line
> passes 
> > through the T.
> > The supports are at the end only. The ladder line has a twist
> every 3 or 4 
> > feet and rides easily through the pvc supports. This has been up
> for at 
> > least three years and has survived tree limbs, frost, snow and
> people with 
> > no problems to date.
> >
> > I think I have pictures of the clamps if anyone is interested.
> >
> > Les W2LK
> >
> > On 10/23/2013 5:46 PM, Mike Waters wrote:
> >> Whatever you use for wire, it needs to float at the supports.
> Anchor it 
> >> at
> >> only one end and tension it tightly at the other end.
> >>
> >> I use my own ladder line, made from .061" diameter plated steel
> electric
> >> fence wire and spacers made from 1/4" dia. plastic coat hangers.
> Supports
> >> are 10' high and 100' apart. It's taken a lot of abuse, including
> large
> >> tree branches falling on it and a porch roof hurled against it by
> a small
> >> tornado. Some supports broke during the flying porch roof
> incident, but 
> >> the
> >> wires never broke either time.
> >>
> >> WD-1A military telephone wire works well, if you have the right
> impedance
> >> matching transformers.
> >>
> >> Having said all this, I know that a lot of Topbanders use that
> brown
> >> plastic window line for their Beverage antennas. Which kind
> lasts?
> >>
> >> 73, Mike
> >> http://www.w0btu.com/Beverage_antennas.html
> >> _________________
> >> Topband Reflector
> >>
> >>
> >
> > _________________
> > Topband Reflector
> >
> >
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> Topband Reflector
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