[TowerTalk] Small 160 M receiving Antennas

[N2TK]

Don't have much property here either. The longest beverages I could fit
ranged from 220' to 310'. Definitely not long enough. Over a season I
compared these beverages to ewes. The ewes were 15' high by 38' long. I have
a box at each end so I could feed either end. What I do is feed 12v through
the coax to these boxes which house a terminating resistor, relay, 9:1
transformer and coax feed. This gives me 6 directions in a small space.
The beverages were sometines as good as the ewes, but they never beat the
ewes. Took down the beverages after one season.
I also put up a 15' high X 38' long ewe pointed to europe. I used this as my
refernce antenna. I installed an insulated wire on the ground tieing the
feed and terminating ground rods together. This seemed to show considerable
improvement in the front/side as compared to the ewe that was pointing in
the same directiona and that did not have this wire tieing the ends
together. By the way, I am in eastern NY on hilly terrain with solid rock
about 3-5 feet below the surface. No long ground rods here.
For the past few months I put up a K9AY loop pointed to Europe. So far it
seems to be quiter than the ewes, but about the same gain. I terminated it
with a 390 ohm resistor. It seesm to favor 160m. When I tried a 560 ohm
resistor, it seemed to favor 80m as compared to the ewes.
Just changed it to favor the northwest. Maybe I will now be able to hear kh2
and kh0 on 160 - hi.
Going to put up 2 of these at right angles to each other to get 4
directions. ALso going to put a relay in the box to change the resistor
value to see how much impact on 80 and 160m.
Does anyone have any experience with phasing the K9AY loops? I could
probably do it, but would have about 90-125' spacing, depending where I put
them in the yard.

Tony
N2TK


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-towertalk@contesting.com
[mailto:owner-towertalk@contesting.com]On Behalf Of Mike Anderson
Sent: Saturday, January 02, 1999 5:16 AM
To: James P. Cassidy
Cc: TOWERTALK REFLECTOR
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Small 160 M receiving Antennas


I have found the "EWE" receiving antenna to be a reasonable compromise
to full size beverages. In most cases these antenna's seem to work but
by no means perform like a beverage. I have used this current receiving
antenna over the last 2-3 years. The following is what works best for
me.

My property is 150 x 200 feet. The 150 feet is in the east/west
direction. I have two trees that are exactly 61 feet apart. I have the
wire stretched between the trees. The front part of the antenna slopes
down @ a 45 deg angle into a ZJ beverage box. the rear of the antenna is
bent @ 90 degs and terminated into a 680 ohm resistor. I recently
changed the pitch on the front of this antenna from 90 to 45 degrees
which I have found to further enhance to S/N ratio. I'm feeding the
beverage box with RG6U quad shielded 75 ohm coax. The 75 ohm cable is
then plugged into an ICE rf limiter model 196. This is used to ensure no
stray rf enters front-end of radio. From the rf limiter I go to the "B"
side of a A/B coax switch.

I currently use a Yaesu ft-1000 mp. On the back of this rig there are
two jacks (RX-IN) (RX-OUT).
I feed the out jack into the "A" position on the A/B coax switch. The
common terminal of the A/B switch then goes to a ICE model 130
pre-amp.This pre-amp is variable gain and has an on-off switch. I find
being able to vary the gain 0-20 db really helps to pull some of the
weak one's through. The signal is then feed back into the RX-IN jack on
the rig.

I also can use the "A" position to inset this pre-amp with my other
antennas. This really seems to be nice on a quiet band. I'm located
about 1/4 mile north of the bay here on Long Island. At this location
I'm very happy with this configuration. The receive antenna is by no
means equal to a full size beverage but in my location this is what has
worked for me.

Regards Mike N2TX




--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/towertalkfaq.html
Submissions:              towertalk@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  towertalk-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-towertalk@contesting.com
Search:                   http://www.contesting.com/km9p/search.htm