[TowerTalk] Beverage Antenna

[Doug Turnbull]

Hans,

    I am not an expert on these antennas.    I have a Hi-Z 4 square in my
small wood.   Unfortunately it is only 30 feet from an old silage pit made
of mass concrete and of course reinforced with steel.   This former silage
pit has a galvanized roof covering 33% of the area.   Furthermore the four
square is barely a full 150 feet from the transmitting antenna.   Still the
four square is much quieter than the 30M high inverted L for receive.   The
front to back is about 18 dB.   HI-Z (DX-Engineering) claims a 25/30 dB
front to back when the antenna is in the clear.   The four square is
steerable into four directions.   The circle eight is steerable into eight
directions thus filling in the 3dB nulls of "forward gain" - note quotation
marks.   I am going to try to change my four square to a circle eight.   At
the moment I am attempting to obtain some more property which would allow a
circle eight spaced a full 200 feet from any metal and with no surrounding
trees.

 

    The four square works on 160m though 40m but not above.   Performance is
down on 40m from the lower bands.  The four square and circle eight are
about 114 foot in diameter.   The four square has 80 feet between each 20
foot vertical element.

 

     Hi-Z also makes a 200 foot diameter circle eight optimized for 160M and
it does not work on 80 or 40.   The performance of this antenna is
apparently about 2 dB better.    On the Topband reflector people are
comparing these antennas very favourably with Beverages.   Maintenance
certainly is reduced for a four square when mounted in a wood compared to
Beverages.   You are talking about multiple Beverages not just one if you
want to cover the compass.    I think Beverages are hard to beat but it is
difficult to position four bi-directional 800/1020 foot Beverages into most
sites.   Oh to live in Idaho or on a farm.

 

     I beg you guys not to flame me.  At the start my lack of expertise was
stated.   The above is one man's experience.   I am still learning which is
why I greatly welcome what you fellows are writing.

 

     I also have a K9AY which I value and must repair.   It is not in the
league of either four square or Beverages but at times it outperforms either
of these superior antennas.   The K9AY is also less severely affected by
adjacent trees and shorter separation for transmitting antennas or metal
objects.   It requires a much smaller amount of real-estate.    Any receive
antenna is better than no receive antenna.   The K9AY was a considerable
help for me but not in the league of a Beverage.    I need to give the
circle eight a fair chance by placing one away from anything else.

 

                     73 Doug EI2CN  

 

PS Yes it is SNR which is most important but this is difficult for me to
measure.  Directivity is part of this equation and is important in itself.
The Four Square by Hi-Z works.    The K9AY helps and Beverages are just
wonderful - I hope what I read from others about the circle eight relative
to Beverages proves true.

 

PPS Beverages can be very forgiving about bends land contours and trees.
Then one can try BOGs - Beverages on the ground and generally they are
shorter as well.   My work with a JA BOG did not work because of an fault in
the coax which I was unaware of.

 

  _____  

From: Hans Hammarquist [mailto:hanslg at aol.com] 
Sent: 30 January 2015 16:24
To: turnbull at net1.ie
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Beverage Antenna

 

Hi Doug, 

 

Can you give me a short talk (write :-) about Hi-Z circle

eight and four square antennas.







Hans - N2JFS