Topband: Low Band receiving antennas for challenging hilltop qth with ridgelines, ravines, wetlands, e tc.

[kq2m at kq2m.com]

I want to supplement my transmitting antennas with the most useful 
low-noise low-band receiving antennas possible that I can put up in 
dense forest and with extremely challenging topography.

My qth and surrounding woods are on a hilltop with extensive and steeply 
angled jagged ledge, many ridgelines, ravines and wetlands and areas of 
standing water and marsh, varying in height from ~ 750' - 820' ASL.  
Past where I would be able to put receiving antennas, there are very 
sharp dropoffs to South and West of several hundred feet.  It is 
beautiful but NIGHTMARISH to walk through the woods under the best of 
cndx (like today) but it is a true HORROW SHOW when all the thorns 
bushes and dense vegetation is growing rapidly and the Deer Ticks and 
mosquitos are everywhere.  It's even worse in snow as the ledge and rock 
slopes become exponentially more dangerous to access and there is ledge 
EVERYWHERE.

Complicating matters are areas of the woods that resemble the moguls on 
a ski slope only more spread out.  Some of these moguls can approach 30' 
high with the ridgelines even taller than that.  While they somewhat run 
in the same direction ENE to WSW others run on steeply sloping hills 
like a series of "steps".  One ridge runs North to South on the side of 
a hill; drops 15' feet then there is a another ridge then another drop 
of 15' or so to a ravine and standing water and muck pond about 20' 
across.  And there are flatter areas of ledge that have what appears to 
be a boulder on it about 5' high and 30' long right in the middle of a 
flat spot.  There are a few formations like this in other areas as well. 
  The result is that there are very few areas open for more than 100' in 
any direction without running into these rock formations and steep hills 
and dropoffs.

I have already studied the slide deck of Frank, W3LPL's excellent 2016 
Dayton presentation, the beverage article co-authorized by W3LPL and 
N0AX, any many, many articles from W8JI, ON4UN and many others.  The 
questions that I have are specific to my qth and, as far as I remember, 
were not answered in what I have read.

Now that I have described the terrain, my questions will make more 
sense:

1) What is the effect on a terminated directional beverage (terminated 
at the back end that runs downhill at an 8% slope?  If the lobe maximum 
is at say 15 degrees on flat ground, does the lobe maximum drop to an 
even lower angle?  Or does the shape of the lobe change? or both?

2) Same question but with the beverage now running uphill at a 5% slope.

3) Same question but with a pair of phased beverages, one with a 20' 
high "Hump" in the middle and the other without the "Hump".  One 
beverage starts and is terminated on a flat spot, runs to the top of a 
ridge and then back down again on the other side.  The other beverage 
runs in parallel, somewhat downhill and not on a ridge.

4) If you put a phased array of verticals NW to SE (with pattern 
broadside to the direction of the elements - receiving NE) in a flat 
spot that then points directly into a high ridge to the Northeast 30' 
higher than the flat spot and is only 50' from the front of the array, 
have you essentially turned a low angle receiving array into a created a 
high angle receiving array?

5) What happens when you have 4 ground mounted receive verticals with a 
large 5' high boulder taking up all of the  the space in the middle of 
them?  What does that do to the pattern?

6) Let's say that you have a 6 L array of receive verticals in 2 rows of 
three with each line  pointing NW to SE (pattern broadside NE) and they 
are phased.  But instead of being on flat ground they are on the side of 
a steeply sloping hill so that the first row is at 820' asl and the 2nd 
row runs in the same direction but at 800' asl and the rows are spaced 
35' apart.  How might that affect the pattern?  (for purposes of this 
question ignore the impact of ground being "ledge" rather than soil.

7) Now lets say that you have TRANSMITTING antennas for 160, 80 and 40 
nearby.  How far do the RECEIVE verticals and beverages have to 
physically be from the radials of the 160 Inv L, 80 M 4-square and from 
the elements of the 40 meter wire beam before the performance of either 
the transmitting antennas or receiving antennas starts to degrade?  Some 
say they are fine without 30' of a tower or other antenna,  others say 
that any part of the receiving antenna must be at least a full 
wavelength away from the closest radial or closest element of the 
transmitting antenna.  That's quite a difference in spacing!   Which is 
correct?

8) Does the spacing between beverages for different beverages matter as 
long as the beverages cross each other?  If instead the beverages run 
parallel to each other, then what is the required minimum spacing 
between them in wavelengths before their performance starts to degrade?

9) What is the impact on beverage receive performance if the RG6 Quad 
Shield coax feedline to the shack runs horizontal and parallel to the 
beverage instead of running along the forest floor?  I am thinking of 
keeping the RG6 elevated to greatly reduce the opportunity of critters 
to chew on it but I don't want to impact the performance of the 
beverage.

They are challenging questions that are not covered in anything that I 
have read.  I would appreciate all of your thoughts and insights!

Tnx & 73


Bob, KQ2M