[TowerTalk] Advise needed on phased beverages

[Jon Zaimes]

Tonno,

I have numerous phased Beverages on 160 meters.

120m spacing is ideal for broadside pairs on 160. I have a pair toward
Europe with each wire 163 meters long, and this is generally equal to a
single-wire that is 288 meters long in the same direction.

Try testing the outer two wires with the feedlines simply paralleled (no
matching) to rule out any problems with the stack switch.

I use AM broadcast band signals for testing. A signal west of me that  is S7
on a Beverage in that direction drops into the noise when I switch to the NE
broadside pair.

73/Jon

Jon P. Zaimes, AA1K
Tower climber for hire
http://www.aa1k.us/

Reviews of AA1K tower work on eham website:
http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/12922

Hug your favorite tower every day, and always stay connected to it.

-----Original Message-----
From: TowerTalk <towertalk-bounces at contesting.com> On Behalf Of Tonno Vahk
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2018 8:01 AM
To: towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Advise needed on phased beverages

Hi,

Last weekend I finally got into experimenting with phased beverages,
something I was planning for some time.

I installed 3 broadside 219m (718ft) long beverages into the forest looking
at 90 degrees and separated 60m (200ft) from each other (120m between the
outer ones).

I took great care to make sure the wires are straight and fully parallel to
each other as well as starting from the the same line.

I use DXE 9:1 beverage transformers and DXE 470 ohm termination resistors.

I brought 150m (500ft) 50 ohm cable from each beverage feedpoint to the
shack and connected to Microham Stack Switch (like Stackmatch). All the
cables were of identical length to ensure same phasing.

So I presume this system gives me full ability to test any combination of
those 3 beverages alone or phased with each other?

Well, all the 3 beverages alone are quite identical indeed which is good.

But now when switched in pairs or all 3 together I am not seeing much
effect. I do know what the patterns should look like and I presumed the
effect would be strong especially with signals coming from side but most of
the time I notice no difference with any signals when comparing any single
beverages to combinations.

This is puzzling. Modelling suggests I should for example have very big
improvements in suppressing signals 45 degrees off on 160m when using 2
phased beverages 120m apart as well as when using all 3 beverages on 80m but
I did not notice such drops of 10-20db almost in any signals from any off
directions.

I could hardly notice sometimes the expected 3-5db increase in the signals
from the right direction but not always as well.

Can some of you having experiences with phased beverages tell me if I have
done something wrong in my setup?? Should I test them differently? Are the
phased beverages overrated and in real life there is seldom a significant
improvement over 1 single wire beverage that is already long enough like
220m in my case?

Look forward to any input. I can send the modelled patterns and maps of my
beverages in picture files to anyone interested.

73
Tonno
ES5TV
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