Topband: Some experiments with a short beverage, not succeeding very well

[donovanf at starpower.net]

Hi Mark, 

I've built countless dozens of Beverages and its absolutely true 
that "Beverages just want to work." 



About the only situation where they do not work is over highly 
conductive soil such as salt marshes and ocean front locations 
with salt water saturated sub-soils. 


Signals received by a Beverages are normally about ten dB down 
from simple antennas like dipoles and verticals. The preamp in 
your transceiver will compensate for that loss. If it does not, you 
have an undiscovered fault in your Beverage antenna, matching 
transformer or feed line. 


Do you have an antenna analyzer such as an MFJ-259? 
If so, what results have you seen? 


73 
Frank 
W3LPL 
















----- Original Message -----

From: "Mark Lunday" <wd4elg at outlook.com> 
To: topband at contesting.com 
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2020 6:56:40 PM 
Subject: Topband: Some experiments with a short beverage, not succeeding very well 

"Beverages just want to work" is what I have heard. 

Not having much luck with that here. I suspect operator/installation error. 

I did a lot of reading and I must be doing something wrong. 



* 250 feet of insulated wire strung out in 030 degrees direction toward EU, pretty straight, varying in height from 4 to 6 feet, running through thick brush with no metal objects or artificial elements along the run. 
* 9:1 transformer at feed point with ground rod 
* 300 feet of coax, mix of RG-8, MMR-400 to get to the edge of the woods from the house 
* No terminating resistor 

On bands 160-40, the signals are very weak. I am monitoring WSPR, FT8. I can hear signals on 160-40 but they are way down compared to dipoles and inverted L on the same bands. Like 20-30 db down. From what I read, I should NOT need an HF pre-amplifier, right? 

Signals on 30 and 20 seem to be better and I can copy some DX from EU on FT8. 

I will try installing a new ground rod, the old one is 10 years old and perhaps not making a good ground connection at the feedpoint. The transformer is brand new, so that's not an issue. The coax has tested out fine. Soil is central North Carolina clay, a bit dry at this time. 

I am guessing performance is poor on 160-40 because of the short length and that it's bi-directional (no terminating resistor), which I am seeing on 30 meters. But I did not think it would be THIS bad on 160-40.... 

Mark Lunday, WD4ELG 
Greensboro, NC FM06be 
wd4elg at arrl.net<mailto:wd4elg at arrl.net> 
http://wd4elg.blogspot.com 
SKCC #16439 FISTS #17972 QRP ARCI #16497 

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