W1KM found that out as they didnt work at all stretched over a saltwater marsh out on his Cape Cod contest station
A Beverage needs a relatively poor ground to slow down and tilt the incoming wave. On my extra poor ground rock pile Im amazed at how well they work once I understood the nuances of proper matching and establishing a steady ground reference. If I had run a ground wire end to end as some texts state I would have lost most of the directivity. Carl KM1H ----- Original Message ----- From: "GeorgeWallner" <[email protected]> To: "Robin" <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 7:45 PM Subject: Re: Topband: Beverages near the ocean > On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:01:35 -0700 > "Robin" <[email protected]> wrote: >> I like your definite answer: It Depends! Truly! >> >> It unfortunately seems a bit complex to make a rule >>other than build it and see! Your experiences match what >>I would expect, but there seems to be more at work than >>just distance to seawater. > > Robin, > > Our experiences match closely. > > One key point I tried to make was that whether a Beverage > will be good or not depends on its distance from the sea > water. Not only its lateral distance but also its vertical > distance. If there is sea water under the sand under the > Beverage, it will most likely not work well. In several > cases, I have actually dug down to see if there was sea > water! On Chesterfield, while there was water under the > sand, it was fresh water! Rain water got trapped between > the underlying rock and the sand. The Beverage above it > worked well. It was a reversible Beverage and it had a > very good F/B. Also, its signal to noise ratio was better > than our 60' DHDL's. A very similar Beverage that ran > parallel to the beach did not work: its signal to noise > ratio was worse than the DHDL's. And, just like you said: > it was a low noise omni-directional antenna with very weak > signals. There was salt water under that beverage: the sea > essentially just continued under the sand. > > One now has to ask which is easier? To build the Beverage > or just dig down 3 to 4 feet to see if there is sea water? > (I would build the Beverage: I hate digging and like > building antennas.) > > > 73, > > George, AA7JV > _______________________________________________ > UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
