[TowerTalk] re: Beverage vs what?

[rick@area.com]

> From: Pete Smith <n4zr@contesting.com>
> Subject: [TowerTalk] Beverage vs what?
> 
> Even though I have 5 acres of land to work with, the shape of the property

 [BTW, we have 20 acres]

> is such that the longest Beverages I can install, aimed at either Europe or
> North Asia, are less than 300 ft long.  My reading suggests that this is
> probably too short for 80 meters, and certainly for 160.  With that in
> mind, I'm looking at alternatives.
> 
> There are some anecdotes suggesting that a Beverage works better than its
> pattern would suggest because it discriminates against vertically-polarized
> energy, which my transmit antenna clearly does not.  Anything to this?  I
> found no discussion of this phenomenon (?) in ON4UN's book.

I just put up a 500 ft beverage pointed SW.  As with my previous 600 ft
beverage pointed E, there is some magic noise suppressing property to
these antennas, far beyond their directivity.  S/N is improved at least
20 dB, and they don't have anywhere near that kind of directivity.
The SW beverage had a very good null to the back but S/N ratio on
a Utah station off the back (from my QTH in CA) was about the same
as on the xmit antenna.  In any other direction, the beverage was better
than the xmit antenna.  This was all on 160M.  On 75M, it allowed me 
to work an SP9 running 100 watts over the long path Sunday morning.  
He was totally inaudible on the xmit antenna.  I am in an area of 
conductivity 15 on the FCC map, and near the border with the 30 area, 
so you don't need poor ground for a beverage to work.  (Xmit antenna 
is a 90 ft top loaded vertical with extensive ground screen).

I also fooled around with the antenna on the BCB.  The San Francisco 
stations are 50 to 100 miles away right in the path of the SW beverage.
>From the lowest one I tried (740 kHz) to the highest (1590 kHz), the
beverage reception was vastly superior to the vertical.  The beverage
removed all cochannel interference from the east, even pulling in 
stations that have to reduce power at night (1550 kHz) and are nearly
inaudible in the central valley.  On 740 kHz, the beverage is only
1/2 wave long, so maybe a 300 ft one would work on 160 and 80.

> 
> From: K7GCO@aol.com
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Beverage vs what?
> 
>      I'll be able to run the radials beyond the end also.  I've run 10 
> radials 550' and longer in favored directions in Eznec for a 1/4 WL vertical 
> and a vertical beam and I got 4 dB gain.  If very long radials beyond a 
> Beverage helps a vertical beam, perhaps it will help a Beverage.  It's worth 
> a try.

I tried that on 20M with 4 WL radials and it didn't work, no matter what
EZNEC says.  Info on my web site (www.karlquist.com).

As always, this is merely what worked at my QTH, YMMV.

Rick Karlquist N6RK
rick@area.com

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