14 December 2020 status update :
Instead of 200 meters long I have elected to use 1.7 wavelengths as most publications are stating, also less problems installing it.
So, a nice 70 meters long insulated copper wire was installed at 2-3 meters up supported by tree branches.
Got one threaded rod bar 2 meters long inserted in the ground, helped by another 3 radials 5 meters long for each end.
470 Ohms terminating resistor at one end and 9:1 transformer at the coax side. 40 meters band shown 50 ohms and j +20 ohms @ 7 Mhz.
Keep in mind that beverage antenna was installed 1/2 wavelengths apart from transmit antenna.
Results are not impressive, maybe I was expecting too much from it.
- SNR improved a lot during the day only TCVR built in preamp used.
- Bev antenna was receiving 80 % versus 3 el. inverted Vee transmit antenna.
- F/B was not that great, could hear both East or West stations but I wasn’t in keen thinkering terminating resistor.
- Transmit power was greatly induced into Bev so terminating resistor has to withstand at least 10 or 20 Watts.
- Rainy day, mud all over the place, tramping boots were drifting big time.
- Once propagation start to build up towards USA (main beverage lobe) and Europe in skip zone, beverage antenna was useless as TX antenna noise dropping impressively.
- One day will build a noise antenna and some noise phase cancelation system, just for fun and testing.
Bottom line :
I do not say is a bad antenna but in my country location where RF noise is low @ 40 meters, my precious 3 elements inverted vee @ 10 meters up is way better. I do believe that using an extra preamp at the BEV feed point would’ve decrease antenna RDF so probably BEV and TX antenna would provide same signals and noise level.
Total cost of it would be 10 Euro / 100 metres reel, 7 Euro threaded rods, and another 12 Euro per 25 metres of cheap RG58 coax, so 30 Euros / 37USD overall.
I’ve run YO8XMAS callsign till 1 UTC, but not a single DX was better to copy on beverage.
There is a video clip below switching between beverage ant transmit antenna, audio comments is in Romanian language but is easy to understand in English too, videoclip with a QSO WA – G at 16 UTC where RF noise was at it’s peak.
73’s , Gabriel yo8rxp
Hi folks ! This article is work in progress, just thinking and no practical results yet !
For the next great HF contest aka ARRL DX due in February 2021, I gotta change RX antenna perspective, sort of …
So, thinking as big boyz do, I got to ditch EWE and other short and not so good ones, gotta be beverage.
Insulated 1.5 mm copper wire, some 1.5 meter poles and some long field for it, like 200 meters (660 feet).
Another head scratch, another problem to solve but hey ! as hamradio operator what could be greater than a new challenge ?
As per my believes, no other but contest would make neurons to produce good ideas, so contest it is….
Looking at the result in cq ww did not make me happy, so gotta be better than this.Got good tx signals in USA but receive is something to work on it, even if noise is S1. Gotta be better than S1 noise, got to improve signal to noise ratio.
Sincerely , Gabriel yo8rxp proud member of YP0HQ / YP0K team
