Topband: Beverage upgrade question

[w5zn at w5zn.org]

Hi Kenny,

Over the past 12 or more years I've conducted numerous comparisons of 
different receive antennas on the low bands. I'm fortunate to have 
enough land to lay all of them out with adequate spacing and perform A/B 
comparisons. I am in a rural area that is relatively quite although over 
those 12 years I have seen the noise floor gradually increase up to 5 dB 
in a couple of directions! A battle I continually fight!!

One thing I have emphasized over the years is the realized performance 
of any antenna will be different depending on the geographical location. 
Another point is most times radio amateurs have unrealistic expectations 
of what the performance of a specific antenna will be.

With that said, I have compared the antenna you are considering at your 
QTH here at W5ZN with a single Beverage that you currently use. I could 
not document any noticeable improvement between the two. That's not to 
say there wasn't any improvement, it just was not noticeable.

I begin to notice a difference when the RDF is increased by more than 
1.5dB. I realize this is splitting hairs when we're claiming only a few 
tenths of a dB difference but that is based on my real world documented 
comparison.

The most significant improvement I have documented is moving from a 
Beverage to a phased vertical array. The Hi-Z and BSEF 8 vertical arrays 
are the top, with the HiZ outperforming the BSEF by just a tad due to 
the HiZ-8's improved F/B and F/S performance. The YCCC-9 is also an 
excellent performer. My measurements have also confirmed the modeling 
data for all of the arrays. I presented this data at Contest University 
- Dayton this year.

So my recommendation is to erect the new Beverage and give it a try. You 
may very well notice a improvement. If constructed correctly, it should 
be an improvement even if only a few tenths of a dB RDF and it won't be 
a loss !

73 Joel W5ZN





On 2022-08-23 14:07, Kenny Silverman wrote:
> In a rural area with no significant man made noise, if you redesign a
> beverage for better RDF when do you start to notice a difference?
> 
> I’m considering upgrading my single EU beverage at 625’ (190m) to a
> pair in echelon where will each be 550’ (168m) with 20’ (6m)  spacing
> . The increase in RDF is 0.8 dB - will it be noticeable?
> 
> I realize if there’s noise in a direction where you reduce the energy
> you will better hear the difference , but my EU beverage is quiet.
> Though the F/B change will help with thunder storms off the back.
> 
> Overall I tend to receive better than I transmit to EU.
> 
> 73 , Kenny K2KW
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