Topband: Topband Digest, Vol 181, Issue 16

terry burge ki7m at comcast.net
Sat Jan 13 14:09:27 EST 2018


Hello Dave and Group,


I had responded directly to Martin and will include my comments to him. Right now I hesitate to pull the tape off the coax at the XFRM but will do that ASAP to check it out. When I took it off the old spool it had not been used but it is donated to me from a junk yard lot. I also got a 4 foot spool nearly  full of 1/2" hardline I'm planning on replacing my  ground run of LMR-400 with. 75 ohm but it should work if I can build the connections to the LMR-400 PL-259's, etc. 


Disconnecting the ground as well as the BOG (in this case) from the XFRM causes the noise to drop down to about S-1 to S-2. 

With ground connected to the XFRM I get about S-5 noise level without any antenna. 

Per my note to Martin you can read my other test. Right now with the  550-600 ft. beverage hooked up along with ground of course, I get S-5 noise level and can't hear an S-9+10 over signal on  7.235 Mhz. 


Terry

KI7M

----------------

Hi Martin,

I will perform some checks and let you know. The beverage is plugged into RX IN jack like it should be. I just removed the Array Solutions Front End Protector and that seemed to make the noise floor lower on AM band. I was able to pick up signal perhaps a little better. Not the best time to be testing right now at 10:30 AM for these bands of course. But in checking on 80 mtrs I found an SSB signal on 3947 KHz and checked that. An S9+10 signal can't be heard when I switch in the RX BOG. I background goes from S-6 up to S-7 when i switch the RX in?
The XFMR is the one with the SO-239 for the coax which of course is the right one. I have tried beverage and ground swapped both ways on the two 'butterfly' connections. I will switch back to the 550-600 north beverage from the BOG and do some more checking later.

Terry
KI7M

> On January 13, 2018 at 10:19 AM David Olean wrote:
> 
> 
>     Hello Terry
> 
>     I would suspect the coax could be bad. Is it new or has it been laying
>     around awhile.? I have had water get into flooded RG-6 coax, and with
>     all the metals associated with the shielding, the corrosion has produced
>     a battery effect and there is DC voltage there as read on a high
>     impedance DVM. Of course the coax produced copious amounts of noise as
>     well. Critters had chewed on the new coax to allow water entry. You
>     can test the cable with an antenna analyzer or even a DVM. You should
>     see no leakage between conductors. If there is any resistance showing,
>     you have a problem. If you disconnect the beverage at the far end, the
>     noise should drop to zero with just the coax connected. If you hear
>     noise, it is coming in on the coax or is being generated within the
>     coax. Good luck and I hope you find the problem.
> 
>     Dave K1WHS
> 
> 
>     On 1/13/2018 5:00 PM, topband-request at contesting.com mailto:topband-request at contesting.com wrote:
> 
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> >         Today's Topics:
> >         1. Re: My beverage only hears static? (Martin)
> > 
> > 
> >         ---------------------------------------------
> > 
> >         Message: 1
> >         Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2018 16:12:29 +0100
> >         From: Martin
> >         To: topband at contesting.com mailto:topband at contesting.com
> >         Cc: ki7m at comcast.net mailto:ki7m at comcast.net
> >         Subject: Re: Topband: My beverage only hears static?
> >         Message-ID:
> >         Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
> > 
> >         No matter where the beverage points to, terminated or not, hearing only
> >         s5 static just seems not right to me.
> >         Did you connect your antenna to RX IN (not OUT) ? What XFMR do you use?
> >         Grounded the coax at the feedpoint by accident? What happens when you
> >         leave the frontend protector out of the setup? Will your K3 pick up
> >         signals when you connect your TX-antenna to RX IN?
> > 
> >         73, Martin
> > 
> > 
> >         Am 13.01.2018 um 15:16 schrieb topband-request at contesting.com mailto:topband-request at contesting.com :
> > 
> >             > > > Message: 8
> > >             Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2018 12:44:25 -0800 (PST)
> > >             From: terry burge
> > >             To:topband at contesting.com mailto:topband at contesting.com , terry burge
> > >             Subject: Topband: My beverage only hears static?
> > >             Message-ID:<787619245.139836.1515789865550 at connect.xfinity mailto:787619245.139836.1515789865550 at connect.xfinity .com>
> > >             Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> > > 
> > >             Hi folks,
> > > 
> > > 
> > >             I put up my first beverage recently. It's about 550-600 feet of 17 gauge electric fence wire running to the north about 6-7 feet high. Not terminated right now but using a beverage transformer I purchased on qth.com and have not put on the termination yet. Using a 5' galvanized ground rod at the transformer and 75 ohm RG-6 surplus I got about 35 feet to my K-3 Elecraft thru an Array Solutions frontend protector to the RX antenna connection.
> > > 
> > > 
> > >             All I get is S-5 static on the beverage. Even the strong stations barely make a ripple of noise. Is this right?
> > > 
> > > 
> > >             I added some clamp on ferrites to see if the Common Mode Noise would be cut down but after putting 5 on the RG-6 coax there is no difference. Just that S-5 static level on any band 80/40/20/etc. Right now I'm listening to P49MR on 14.250.0 Mhz and his 57 signal does not even come thru on the beverage when I switch to RX antenna?
> > > 
> > > 
> > >             Terry
> > > 
> > >             KI7M
> > > 
> > >         > > 
> >     >     _________________
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