[TowerTalk] Beverage Antenna

Sat Jan 31 06:16:31 EST 2015

This PVC pipe over T posts sounds like a workable solution. It will 
elevate the wire sufficiently that I can drive a tractor under it. An 
alternative is to elevate the Beverage wire 6-8 ft above a wire fence, 
would the fence degrade the Beverage performance significantly?  It 
would be very convenient to be able to have the Beverage wire run along 
the fence.

Patrick   NJ5G

On 1/30/2015 4:25 PM, Courtney Judd wrote:
> what i did to elevate my beverage was to put fence posts every 50 ft 
> or so and slip a 10 ft piece of pvc over it. I had a deep notch cut in 
> the top and ran electric fence wire over it... keep the cows out of 
> it... my 2 cents, Cort K4WI
>
>> Doug Turnbull <mailto:turnbull at net1.ie>
>> Friday, January 30, 2015 2:28 PM
>> Hans,
>> In my case the Beverages were supported by fence posts every fifty feet.
>> The antennas were kept up for the TB season. My lengths were more than
>> one wave length approximately 880 feet in one direction and over 1000 
>> feet
>> in another. I have tried both bi and uni-directional Beverages. Both 
>> work
>> fine. The ends tapered over about 23/30 feet from a four foot level to a
>> ground rod at each end. I used transformers from DX Engineering for the
>> uni-directional and from Radio Spares of New Hampshire for the
>> bi-directional antennas. Beverages work but I needed to use neighbours
>> fields and it just became too problematic.
>>
>> The only reason I can think of putting a Beverage eight to ten feet in
>> the air is livestock and wildlife. It is harder to raise the antenna up.
>> Fence posts are very convenient with insulators for electric fences. You
>> can also obtain three foot insulated posts designed for electric 
>> fencing.
>> I have not tried these but they should work.
>>
>> The Hi-Z four square and eight circle fit on my own land though I want
>> to move them further away as mentioned.
>>
>> I note Array Solutions has another loop type antenna for receive and
>> would like to see comparisons between its varieties and K9AY, Beverages,
>> four square and circle eight. There are Beverages topping 1400 feet used
>> by K5RX and others which no doubt are even more desirable; there is 
>> much to
>> be said for living in Texas.
>>
>> This is not a easy subject. It is not cut and dry and things are
>> changing. Beverages seem to be the standard but it will depend on the
>> Beverage. Circle eight people are saying they have done away with 
>> Beverage
>> farms. Be wary of snake oil. As I say there is so much to learn from
>> others and the ultimate truth is hard to find.
>>
>> Now maybe some others can shed some real light on the subject.
>>
>> 73 Doug EI2CN
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf 
>> Of Earl
>> Morse
>> Sent: 30 January 2015 18:03
>> To: towertalk at contesting.com
>> Cc: towertalk at contesting.com
>> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Beverage Antenna
>>
>>
>> Hans,
>>
>> My experience with the Beverage is limited but that probably puts me 
>> ahead
>> of about 99% of the ham population who have never built one.
>>
>> I built a set of NE/NW one wavelength Beverages for XA5T when we used to
>> contest there. These were single support antennas anchored by a 
>> ground rod
>> at the feed point and another at the termination. The wire was aluminum
>> electric fence wire (17 gauge Fido Shock) because it was cheap and 
>> didn't
>> have to be durable since we laid the antenna out before the contest and
>> rolled them back up after the contest to use again the next year. The
>> hardest part was hacking through the brush and cactus to get them 
>> strung up.
>> I used a fiber glass support (3 sections of military camoflage net 
>> support)
>> for the center post. The ground rods at the termination and feed point
>> provided the end anchors.
>>
>> Performance was good. I used a single balun and fed both antennas at the
>> same point, allowing me to switch between them with only one run of coax
>> back to the shack. They were directive and it was easy to switch 
>> between NE
>> and NW making the W1s go away and the W7s pop up. With this 
>> directivity and
>> the supposed cardioid pattern I believe the big advantage was 
>> increased S/N
>> by eliminating noise in one direction while maintaining signal from the
>> desired direction. They were one wavelength on 160M but we used them 
>> with
>> success on 80 and 40 as well.
>>
>> Once you get the initial antenna up, whether it be a wavelength of wire
>> laying on the ground or a single support model like I built, you will 
>> have
>> to more than double your efforts to get a readily noticeable 
>> improvement in
>> the performance of the antenna. You might just want to try the simplest
>> design and see how it works before improving on it with enhanced
>> terminations, multiwires, and beefed up ground systems.
>>
>> Earl
>> N8SS
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 3
>> Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 00:15:36 -0500
>> From: Hans Hammarquist via TowerTalk <towertalk at contesting.com>
>> To: towertalk at contesting.com
>> Subject: [TowerTalk] Beverage Antenna
>> Message-ID: <8D20A62EA8E9BAC-F9C-ADD7 at webmail-vm060.sysops.aol.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>>
>> Hi Fellow Towertalkers,
>>
>> I'm considering putting "up" a Beverage antenna and have some questions
>> regarding what I can do and not do to get it work good. I looked in 
>> to it
>> and find the two-wire version being worthwhile.
>>
>> How important is it that the two wires are side-by-side. Can one be 
>> on top
>> of the other? The installation will be a lot easier if one can be on 
>> top of
>> the other.
>>
>> Do the wires have to be absolutely parallel?
>>
>> Do the wires have to be on a straight line or do they have constant 
>> height
>> above ground? The area I planning to put the antenna is not even but 
>> rather
>> hilly.
>>
>> Do the antenna have to be in a clear area or can it be surrounded by 
>> trees?
>> How close can the trees be? Can I, maybe, use trees as support? I really
>> don't want to cut too much trees to put this thing up.
>>
>> What type of ground do I have to install in the far end? I guess a 
>> grounding
>> rod is not enough.
>>
>> Is there some phasing device available to make a steerable antenna by 
>> using
>> two or three Beverage antennae together.? I think I saw or heard about
>> something about this but don't remember.
>>
>> Best 73 de,
>>
>> Hans - N2JFS
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> TowerTalk mailing list
>> TowerTalk at contesting.com
>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> TowerTalk mailing list
>> TowerTalk at contesting.com
>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>>
>> Earl Morse <mailto:kz8e at wt.net>
>> Friday, January 30, 2015 12:03 PM
>> Hans,
>>
>> My experience with the Beverage is limited but that probably puts me 
>> ahead of about 99% of the ham population who have never built one.
>>
>> I built a set of NE/NW one wavelength Beverages for XA5T when we used 
>> to contest there. These were single support antennas anchored by a 
>> ground rod at the feed point and another at the termination. The wire 
>> was aluminum electric fence wire (17 gauge Fido Shock) because it was 
>> cheap and didn't have to be durable since we laid the antenna out 
>> before the contest and rolled them back up after the contest to use 
>> again the next year. The hardest part was hacking through the brush 
>> and cactus to get them strung up. I used a fiber glass support (3 
>> sections of military camoflage net support) for the center post. The 
>> ground rods at the termination and feed point provided the end anchors.
>>
>> Performance was good. I used a single balun and fed both antennas at 
>> the same point, allowing me to switch between them with only one run 
>> of coax back to the shack. They were directive and it was easy to 
>> switch between NE and NW making the W1s go away and the W7s pop up. 
>> With this directivity and the supposed cardioid pattern I believe the 
>> big advantage was increased S/N by eliminating noise in one direction 
>> while maintaining signal from the desired direction. They were one 
>> wavelength on 160M but we used them with success on 80 and 40 as well.
>>
>> Once you get the initial antenna up, whether it be a wavelength of 
>> wire laying on the ground or a single support model like I built, you 
>> will have to more than double your efforts to get a readily 
>> noticeable improvement in the performance of the antenna. You might 
>> just want to try the simplest design and see how it works before 
>> improving on it with enhanced terminations, multiwires, and beefed up 
>> ground systems.
>>
>> Earl
>> N8SS
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 3
>> Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 00:15:36 -0500
>> From: Hans Hammarquist via TowerTalk <towertalk at contesting.com>
>> To: towertalk at contesting.com
>> Subject: [TowerTalk] Beverage Antenna
>> Message-ID: <8D20A62EA8E9BAC-F9C-ADD7 at webmail-vm060.sysops.aol.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>>
>> Hi Fellow Towertalkers,
>>
>> I'm considering putting "up" a Beverage antenna and have some 
>> questions regarding what I can do and not do to get it work good. I 
>> looked in to it and find the two-wire version being worthwhile.
>>
>> How important is it that the two wires are side-by-side. Can one be 
>> on top of the other? The installation will be a lot easier if one can 
>> be on top of the other.
>>
>> Do the wires have to be absolutely parallel?
>>
>> Do the wires have to be on a straight line or do they have constant 
>> height above ground? The area I planning to put the antenna is not 
>> even but rather hilly.
>>
>> Do the antenna have to be in a clear area or can it be surrounded by 
>> trees? How close can the trees be? Can I, maybe, use trees as 
>> support? I really don't want to cut too much trees to put this thing up.
>>
>> What type of ground do I have to install in the far end? I guess a 
>> grounding rod is not enough.
>>
>> Is there some phasing device available to make a steerable antenna by 
>> using two or three Beverage antennae together.? I think I saw or 
>> heard about something about this but don't remember.
>>
>> Best 73 de,
>>
>> Hans - N2JFS
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> TowerTalk mailing list
>> TowerTalk at contesting.com
>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>>
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