Re: Topband: Beverage Antenna
Bryan, Use RG-6 direct burial or equivalent for the beverage connection. No need to use LMR400. You should be able to find it relatively inexpensively. Make sure you have a matching transformer for the beverage impedance to 72 ohms for the RG-6. W8JI.com will give you just about all the information you need to make a transformer. Les W2LK On 11/9/2012 12:28 AM, Buck wh7dx wrote: After some more reading... It looks like NE is the best approach. Point it towards North America. I can probably get it pointed at the lower states. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go bi-directional or not and try and get Australia / NZ but I think I'll go for quiet and just try NA for now. I will need to take it up about 50-75 feet from the feed point I would guess. I don't now if an elevated beverage would be a negative. The ground is mostly hard old volcanic ash with loose dirt here and there.. just enough to make you fall down It's usually always dry and I'm thinking it is a very poor ground. Drill a few holes for copper ground rods on both side? Put about 10 radial wires on the rods and spread them around. In Hawaii I'm thinking bailing wire but it will rust. Fence wire isn't common. Question.. I was going to start the beverage pretty close to the 40, 80 160 dipole in the tree.. I'm low on LMR400. Last of my spool. If it was important, I could order more from mainland and start it higher on the mountain - giving me a more horizontal antenna. Should I be concerned with the beverage distance, using it for receiving and probably on a different radio? Thank you. Bryan WH7DX [CONFIDENTIALITY AND PRIVACY NOTICE] Information transmitted by this email is proprietary to Mr. Mrs. B and is intended for use only by the individual or entity to which it is addressed, or where ever the hell it ends up, and will almost certainly contain information that will offend a large portion of the population, which isn't our concern. If you are not the intended lucky recipient, or it appears that this mail has been forwarded to you without the proper authority of the Wizard of Email or Al Gore, you are notified that any thought, use, or consumption of this email is entirely your choice. In such case, Bon AppetitNote: A $.02 Internet Tax was charged for receiving this email and all funds were given to some family somewhere in America or the U.N Have a nice day. ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Re: Topband: Beverage Antenna
I was just reading about SALT spray in Hawaii and the what it does to the soil.. I never thought about that. Salt spray and not much rain for me. Salty volcanic top soil/rock? Again, thanks for all the emails.Helped walk it through. Going N/E and taking it as far away from Dipoles as 125ft of coax will take me :-) Cutting 8ft copper grounding rod into 2 or more pieces. Can't pound them in very far... will need to drill them in as anchors for radials. Using radial wire (whatever I can get here).. to run some wires out from the copper ground at the feed point (attach one to galvanized fence in the area??) and put MORE on the terminated end.. one or two long ones 100ft? I'm wondering if I'll see a difference in performance when it rains and washes away the salt spray on the ground? This was an interesting site... the Top Band info was really useful. http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/uham/index.html This is funny... so Hawaii... The first problem is to get from the traditional local relative directions such as Mauka, to actual compass references, the concepts seldom used in Hawaii such as north and east. Streets are usually not much help at all, since they seem to delight in going on all sorts of wierd angles. Besides, when North and South King Street run mostly east and west and North King is south of South King Street, it is not surprising that few in Hawaii can actually point north from any given location. In fact, finding any map of Hawaii that contains latitude and longitude lines is a struggle, and many maps of Hawaii seem to have even given up on the tradition of printing maps with north at the top! [CONFIDENTIALITY AND PRIVACY NOTICE] Information transmitted by this email is proprietary to Mr. Mrs. B and is intended for use only by the individual or entity to which it is addressed, or where ever the hell it ends up, and will almost certainly contain information that will offend a large portion of the population, which isn't our concern. If you are not the intended lucky recipient, or it appears that this mail has been forwarded to you without the proper authority of the Wizard of Email or Al Gore, you are notified that any thought, use, or consumption of this email is entirely your choice. In such case, Bon AppetitNote: A $.02 Internet Tax was charged for receiving this email and all funds were given to some family somewhere in America or the U.N Have a nice day. ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Re: Topband: Beverage Antenna
Bryan, Galvanized chicken wire (wire mesh) makes a superb ground for Beverage terminations especially in your ideal (for Beverage antenna performance) dry rocky environment. A 20 or 30 foot length of wire mesh should perform very well on 160 meters. Run it perpendicular to the end of your Beverage if possible, otherwise run it in whatever direction you can. If it lays under the Beverage, the portion of the Beverage directly above the wire mesh will behave more like a low loss transmission line than an antenna. I would encourage you to install the Beverage far from your transmit antenna, RG-6 is a excellent inexpensive solution. While a low dipole may get you on the air, an inverted-L vertical with ground redials will be far superior. Try to get as much vertical height as possible, at least 40-50 feet if at all possible. More is better. 73 Frank W3LPL Original message Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:02:36 -0500 From: Les Kalmus w...@bk-lk.com Subject: Re: Topband: Beverage Antenna To: topband@contesting.com Bryan, Use RG-6 direct burial or equivalent for the beverage connection. No need to use LMR400. You should be able to find it relatively inexpensively. Make sure you have a matching transformer for the beverage impedance to 72 ohms for the RG-6. W8JI.com will give you just about all the information you need to make a transformer. Les W2LK On 11/9/2012 12:28 AM, Buck wh7dx wrote: After some more reading... It looks like NE is the best approach. Point it towards North America. I can probably get it pointed at the lower states. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go bi-directional or not and try and get Australia / NZ but I think I'll go for quiet and just try NA for now. I will need to take it up about 50-75 feet from the feed point I would guess. I don't now if an elevated beverage would be a negative. The ground is mostly hard old volcanic ash with loose dirt here and there.. just enough to make you fall down It's usually always dry and I'm thinking it is a very poor ground. Drill a few holes for copper ground rods on both side? Put about 10 radial wires on the rods and spread them around. In Hawaii I'm thinking bailing wire but it will rust. Fence wire isn't common. Question.. I was going to start the beverage pretty close to the 40, 80 160 dipole in the tree.. I'm low on LMR400. Last of my spool. If it was important, I could order more from mainland and start it higher on the mountain - giving me a more horizontal antenna. Should I be concerned with the beverage distance, using it for receiving and probably on a different radio? Thank you. Bryan WH7DX [CONFIDENTIALITY AND PRIVACY NOTICE] Information transmitted by this email is proprietary to Mr. Mrs. B and is intended for use only by the individual or entity to which it is addressed, or where ever the hell it ends up, and will almost certainly contain information that will offend a large portion of the population, which isn't our concern. If you are not the intended lucky recipient, or it appears that this mail has been forwarded to you without the proper authority of the Wizard of Email or Al Gore, you are notified that any thought, use, or consumption of this email is entirely your choice. In such case, Bon AppetitNote: A $.02 Internet Tax was charged for receiving this email and all funds were given to some family somewhere in America or the U.N Have a nice day. ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Re: Topband: Beverage Antenna
That is excellent advice! 160 is a band for vertically-polarized antennas (such as an inverted-L or shunt-fed tower with radials lying on the ground.) http://www.w0btu.com/160_meters.html 73, Mike http://www.w0btu.com/Beverage_antennas.html On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 1:41 PM, donov...@starpower.net wrote: While a low dipole may get you on the air, an inverted-L vertical with ground redials will be far superior. Try to get as much vertical height as possible, at least 40-50 feet ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Re: Topband: Beverage Antenna
Have you ever thought of using a 2-wire bi-directional Beverage? They are not complex at all. It only takes one more wire, two more simple transformers, and one more run of coax. A remote relay and four extra parts even lets you use just one run of coax for both directions. If you run a single wire Beverage in the opposite direction, then you have to put up twice as many supports (unless you have trees). But with a two-wire Beverage, you can use the same supports for both directions. 73, Mike http://www.w0btu.com/Beverage_antennas.html On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 3:00 PM, Buck wh7dx wh...@hawaii.rr.com wrote: Use RG-6 line in the future and run another Beverage in the opposite direction - NW. ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Re: Topband: FCP
Very kind, and flattering, but... I'm really NOT expecting to be the loudest guy. There is no reason for me to expect that. But I AM in play. My station, including the antenna wire + FCP, IS working and working well. I have a K3, with dual diversity RX, and an Alpha 8410. RX antennas are the limiting issue at my station. Working on that. I'm using an FCP at 7 feet with an 84 foot vertical wire plus 104' horizontal. It's strung in an open area in my narrow little private forest over the driveway almost to the US 64 service road. The driveway splits the property there, thus no possibility for radials. It's at 7 feet because I could do that and not have to clear some stuff, and it was an EXPERIMENT when we first put it up. I will be moving the FCP up to 15 feet, after clearing that stuff to make it possible, and raising the wire a bit at the same time, so it will be still be about the same wire above the FCP. I have 425 feet of WireMan #554 window line to the matching box plus about 80 feet of coax getting from the shack out to the tractor shed where the balanced line starts. I have a 4:1 isolation transformer to step down to the FCP-antenna feedpoint Z. It's a trifilar winding on a T400A-2 monster powdered iron core. Runs stone cold with 8410 in brick-on-key mode. Vacuum variable cap tunes out series inductive reactance in the nearly 3/8 wave length wire. I use a duplicate of the isolation transformer to go to coax at the tractor shed. That way I have a working duplicate ready if the antenna end gets melted by a direct lightning. There have been four close strikes to trees, and the isolation transformer construction at both ends of the balanced line has stood up to induced voltage without problems My big maintenance headaches are parts of the forest falling on the feedline and squirrels eating the window line material and exposing the wire underneath to moisture. I have support weights on pullies at the ends of the main run, The window line can slip through the supports, which will also release with excessive pressure, and a tree can take the window line to the ground and pull up the weights without snapping or otherwise damaging the window line. There are a couple sweet gums growing into the antenna clear space that are going to be taken down shortly. This antenna is now known for sure to be the best 160m antenna I can get up on the property, so it will be maintained, and I can justify the clearing activities. As to FCP stories... CQ160 CW certificates are now out there for Jan 2012 contest. #1 SOLP in NC (#2 in 4th call area) was over an FCP. #1 SOHP in NC (#3 in 4th call area) was over an FCP. One Scot station with a new FCP in a 21 x 75 foot back yard (!!!), and a 30 foot tower for supporting the bend in the L, was on 160 in the CQWW SSB and worked into the US and all over Africa with 400 watts. Was night and day for him versus his prior setup with necessarily pathetic radials. What radials could anyone put down that work in 21 x 75 feet? And that's *SSB* across the pond, which is at a 10 dB disadvantage to CW across the pond. Yeah, FCP really works, but it is certainly not a replacement or a fix for everything. Those without commercial radial fields, but who have stuff that works and compares favorably with others' RBN numbers may not get discernible performance boost by conversion. If you are getting cr*p RBN numbers on 160, then examination of your setup is in order, and you might get startling improvement with an FCP. Others already have. The FCP is best replacing miscellaneous attempts at radials that are a significant come down from commercial radials. These are usually because size restrictions prevent anything remotely resembling full size dense and uniform all around. On the other hand, some are making no-performance-change FCP substitutions because they didn't lose anything and they got their back yard back. On fellow said he was tired of tangling his annual radials in the lawn mower. Some have put up their first real 160 antenna over an FCP because there was no way they were ever going to use radials, including some that clearly had room for the commercial equivalent. I hear a range of reasons (you've heard them all on this reflector) for not doing radials. 73, Guy. On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 3:00 PM, Guy Olinger K2AV olin...@bellsouth.net wrote: On Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 12:36 AM, Charlie Young weeks...@hotmail.com wrote: Rick, N6PE wrote: The other question is does the thing actually work in the real world? I installed an inverted L over an FCP for 160M and compared it to 3 other inverted L's over two elevated radials using RBN, real signal reports, and DX pileup busting. In addition, I attempted to compare it with field strength measurements with a friend using a spectrum analyzer on a hilltop 5 miles from my hilltop. All antennas were up simultaneously. During the field strength tests, I floated the radiators of the unused antennas. In
Re: Topband: FCP
Guy: great review of all that you did, as far as opting to go the FCP route, and why. I opted to go with sixty elevated radials and, like you, have some proof that the decision worked for me as I just received my SO QRP #1 in the W7 section certificate for the 2012 CQ WW 160 contest. If I didn't have the option of positioning the base of my 43' vertical with 25' top loading wires at the top of a sloping ground (the base of the vertical is, in essence, 10' above the bottom of the wash below the sloped ground) and running those elevated radials I would have gone the FCP route as all indications are that approach is a winner. After working NH8S on 80 meters, SSB and CW with QRP power I feel like my antenna system is a good as it'll be for some time! I guess I feel like I'm in play, albeit I'll never win out over the likes of N7IR, WD5R and VE3MGY - Hi Hi 72, my friend - Jim Rodenkirch K9JWV Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 19:59:10 -0500 From: olin...@bellsouth.net To: weeks...@hotmail.com; topband@contesting.com Subject: Re: Topband: FCP Very kind, and flattering, but... I'm really NOT expecting to be the loudest guy. There is no reason for me to expect that. But I AM in play. My station, including the antenna wire + FCP, IS working and working well. I have a K3, with dual diversity RX, and an Alpha 8410. RX antennas are the limiting issue at my station. Working on that. I'm using an FCP at 7 feet with an 84 foot vertical wire plus 104' horizontal. It's strung in an open area in my narrow little private forest over the driveway almost to the US 64 service road. The driveway splits the property there, thus no possibility for radials. It's at 7 feet because I could do that and not have to clear some stuff, and it was an EXPERIMENT when we first put it up. I will be moving the FCP up to 15 feet, after clearing that stuff to make it possible, and raising the wire a bit at the same time, so it will be still be about the same wire above the FCP. I have 425 feet of WireMan #554 window line to the matching box plus about 80 feet of coax getting from the shack out to the tractor shed where the balanced line starts. I have a 4:1 isolation transformer to step down to the FCP-antenna feedpoint Z. It's a trifilar winding on a T400A-2 monster powdered iron core. Runs stone cold with 8410 in brick-on-key mode. Vacuum variable cap tunes out series inductive reactance in the nearly 3/8 wave length wire. I use a duplicate of the isolation transformer to go to coax at the tractor shed. That way I have a working duplicate ready if the antenna end gets melted by a direct lightning. There have been four close strikes to trees, and the isolation transformer construction at both ends of the balanced line has stood up to induced voltage without problems My big maintenance headaches are parts of the forest falling on the feedline and squirrels eating the window line material and exposing the wire underneath to moisture. I have support weights on pullies at the ends of the main run, The window line can slip through the supports, which will also release with excessive pressure, and a tree can take the window line to the ground and pull up the weights without snapping or otherwise damaging the window line. There are a couple sweet gums growing into the antenna clear space that are going to be taken down shortly. This antenna is now known for sure to be the best 160m antenna I can get up on the property, so it will be maintained, and I can justify the clearing activities. As to FCP stories... CQ160 CW certificates are now out there for Jan 2012 contest. #1 SOLP in NC (#2 in 4th call area) was over an FCP. #1 SOHP in NC (#3 in 4th call area) was over an FCP. One Scot station with a new FCP in a 21 x 75 foot back yard (!!!), and a 30 foot tower for supporting the bend in the L, was on 160 in the CQWW SSB and worked into the US and all over Africa with 400 watts. Was night and day for him versus his prior setup with necessarily pathetic radials. What radials could anyone put down that work in 21 x 75 feet? And that's *SSB* across the pond, which is at a 10 dB disadvantage to CW across the pond. Yeah, FCP really works, but it is certainly not a replacement or a fix for everything. Those without commercial radial fields, but who have stuff that works and compares favorably with others' RBN numbers may not get discernible performance boost by conversion. If you are getting cr*p RBN numbers on 160, then examination of your setup is in order, and you might get startling improvement with an FCP. Others already have. The FCP is best replacing miscellaneous attempts at radials that are a significant come down from commercial radials. These are usually because size restrictions prevent anything remotely resembling full size dense and uniform all around. On the other hand, some are making no-performance-change FCP substitutions because
Topband: Total Length of Inverted-L wire?
84' + 104' ... I take it that's an inverted-L with a total length of 188'? That's interesting, Guy. I've been playing with different lengths of wire in EZNEC+ 5, for a 160 Inverted-L here with a 55' high vertical section, and would appreciate some advice here. I'm leaning towards making mine longer than a 1/4 wavelength, too. My EZNEC models seem to indicate that lengthening the horizontal section --so that the total length of the inverted-l wire varies between 1/4 and 3/8 wavelength-- seems to make little difference in the low angle radiation; but the longer the wire, the more high-angle stuff there is. From what I can tell, lengthening the horizontal section will make very little difference in the gain at low angles for 160m DX. But the added high-angle radiation from a wire with a total length of from 5/16 to 3/8 wavelength will improve the propagation for close-in contacts without affecting the DX capabilities. Am I wrong about this? Any comments on this would be very much appreciated. I haven't yet decided exactly how long to make my inverted-l yet, and I'd appreciate any advice. The constant is that the vertical portion will be 55' high, I am just undecided on how long to make the horizontal portion. I want to put the inverted-L back up very soon. I was going to use an FCP under this, but I'll probably just use elevated 1/4 wavelength radials like I did before. 73, Mike www.w0btu.com On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 6:59 PM, Guy Olinger K2AV olin...@bellsouth.netwrote: I'm using an FCP at 7 feet with an 84 foot vertical wire plus 104' horizontal. ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Re: Topband: Beverage Antenna
I'm not sure why the bidirectional coaxial cable Beveridge doesn't get more discussion. It is described in ON4UN's book, and seemed to work fine when I built one at a prior QTH, although it does take two feedlines from what would logically be the closest end to the shack. Given the price of RG6 and surplus RG58/59 it is easier and potentially cheaper than open wire feedline. Three transformers and no relays. (page 7-88 5th edition and earlier editions as well) Is there some reason that a pair of open wires are significantly better? Grant KZ1W On 11/9/2012 4:24 PM, Mike Waters wrote: Have you ever thought of using a 2-wire bi-directional Beverage? They are not complex at all. It only takes one more wire, two more simple transformers, and one more run of coax. A remote relay and four extra parts even lets you use just one run of coax for both directions. If you run a single wire Beverage in the opposite direction, then you have to put up twice as many supports (unless you have trees). But with a two-wire Beverage, you can use the same supports for both directions. 73, Mike http://www.w0btu.com/Beverage_antennas.html On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 3:00 PM, Buck wh7dx wh...@hawaii.rr.com wrote: Use RG-6 line in the future and run another Beverage in the opposite direction - NW. ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Re: Topband: Beverage Antenna
That's a good question. :-) Maybe it has something to do with the tension each one will stand. I think that CW or plated steel fence wire will stand a lot more tensioning than coax. 73, Mike www.w0btu.com On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 9:36 PM, Grant Saviers gran...@pacbell.net wrote: I'm not sure why the bidirectional coaxial cable Beveridge doesn't get more discussion. It is described in ON4UN's book, and seemed to work fine when I built one at a prior QTH, although it does take two feedlines from what would logically be the closest end to the shack. Given the price of RG6 and surplus RG58/59 it is easier and potentially cheaper than open wire feedline. Three transformers and no relays. (page 7-88 5th edition and earlier editions as well) Is there some reason that a pair of open wires are significantly better? Grant KZ1W On 11/9/2012 4:24 PM, Mike Waters wrote: Have you ever thought of using a 2-wire bi-directional Beverage? They are not complex at all. It only takes one more wire, two more simple transformers, and one more run of coax. A remote relay and four extra parts even lets you use just one run of coax for both directions. If you run a single wire Beverage in the opposite direction, then you have to put up twice as many supports (unless you have trees). But with a two-wire Beverage, you can use the same supports for both directions. 73, Mike http://www.w0btu.com/Beverage_**antennas.htmlhttp://www.w0btu.com/Beverage_antennas.html On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 3:00 PM, Buck wh7dx wh...@hawaii.rr.com wrote: Use RG-6 line in the future and run another Beverage in the opposite direction - NW. __**_ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
