Hi Greg,
Four to six feet is not too high for a Beverage on 160 through 40 meters Beverage sensitivity improves gradually with increased height and th rear lobe and sidelobes increase (directivity degrades) gradually with increased height. The only Beverages I ever installed lower than seven feet was an array of 64 Beverages each 240 feet long and only four feet high. The array operated from 7 to 30 MHz We installed an eight foot high chain link fence with concertina wire on top surrounding the entire 15 acre field and covered the entire field in gravel. 73 Frank W3LPL ----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Chartrand via Topband" <topband@contesting.com> To: topband@contesting.com Sent: Wednesday, July 1, 2020 4:36:43 PM Subject: Re: Topband: experiments with a short beverage * 250 feet of insulated wire strung out in 030 degrees direction toward EU, pretty straight, varying in height from 4 to 6 feet, running through thick brush with no metal objects or artificial elements along the run. This is a bit high for a beverage. * 9:1 transformer at feed point with ground rod The transformer is critical. a binocular transformer with the primary and secondary insulated from each other is really important. Also the ground for the coax side should not share the same ground as the wire ground, the primary must stay independent with only the transformer coupling to the beverage. * 300 feet of coax, mix of RG-8, MMR-400 to get to the edge of the woods from the house OK * No terminating resistor Absolutely a no-no. Your "beverage" is actually working as a 1/2 wave end fed wire, particularly up as high as you have it. Terminate, terminate, terminate!!! -----------You might be better off dropping the wire to the ground as a bog, 250' is close to optimum for it; something to try....? Greg---------------------Greg Chartrand - W7MYRichland, WA. _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector