Re: Topband: Beverage Antenna

[The Bucks]

Thanks Mike,

I already purchased a unidirectional match from Array Solutions so I'm going to 
go with that for now to the NE.

My next beverage will be bidirectional to the NW and SE.   That should do it.   
It makes sense.

I picked up about 500ft of bailing wire at the local hardware store and will be 
getting chicken fence for additional ground on terminated side.

Need to check out the transmission performance of my dipole with cliff and 
ocean (model it).. and learn CW.  Something like 90% of all comm. on 160 is CW.

73,

Bryan.

 

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Re: Topband: Beverage Antenna

[ZR]

There is no need to tension until its perflecty horizontal; I didnt even do 
that when running jacketed #12 Copperweld single wire Beverages. Ive had 
minimal trouble with military telephone wire with a sinewave shape that 
varies 1-2' over 500-750'. This last storm (Sandy) did require a quick 
splice of one of the five 2 wire reversibles. After awhile anything that 
could fall off the trees will and there will be no more problems (-;. The 
joys of living in the woods compared to an open field.
With electric fence insulators nailed into trees the wire is supported but 
can slide as needed.


Carl
KM1H


- Original Message - 
From: "Mike Waters" 
To: "Grant Saviers" ; "topband" 


Sent: Friday, November 09, 2012 10:41 PM
Subject: 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  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.html

On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 3:00 PM, Buck wh7dx  wrote:

 Use RG-6 line in the future and run another Beverage in the opposite

direction - NW.

 __**_

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Re: Topband: Feedline; to ground, or not to ground?

[Tom]

> some suggest that the heliax have a ground kit installed at ground level,
> where the cable leaves the tower base, where there are three ground rods,
> and 100 buried radials. This would result in the outer conductor being
> grounded at 60 feet and 400 feet from the antenna.

I can't imagine why someone running 400 feet of Heliax, and especially with
a tall tower, would not ground feedlines to a radial system at the tower.

Lightning concerns alone dictate proper grounding.

Second, I don't know what type of isolation device you have. 

Effectiveness of any isolation depends heavily on how common mode impedances
are distributed in the system. Not grounding a shield sets you up for all
sorts of problems, and can greatly increase the amount of common mode
impedance you need. Any isolation device or system is dependent on the
change in common mode impedance it makes. This is why we should plan the
system to have low common mode impedance at the point where the series
isolation is added.

A properly placed ground and a few beads can mean a whole lot more than no
ground and a few hundred beads.

> additional shielding , but would strapping to ground at the base have
> any advantages?

Lightning alone dictates bonding the cable to the tower, so any RF technical
issues are a moot point. (no, the tower will not shield the cable)

73 Tom

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Re: Topband: Yippee...!

[Shoppa, Tim]

DL6FBL is easily the strongest, an honest S7-S8, of all the OK/OM contest 
stations "bleeding over" here to the states shortly before sunset.

Wow, that's great.

Tim N3QE

From: Topband [topband-boun...@contesting.com] on behalf of Eddy Swynar 
[deswy...@xplornet.ca]
Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2012 4:49 PM
To: topband@contesting.com
Subject: Topband: Yippee...!

Hi Guys,

Well, I'm DELIGHTED to say that I've heard my first European DX of this season 
on Topband, in the form of DL6FBL calling CQ Contest...and this, a good half 
hour before my local sunset here.

HEARING some DX is certainly believing---that the band may NOT be a total 
wash-out after all this season, that is...! Now, actually WORKING some DX is 
another question! Hi Hi.

~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ
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Topband: Yippee...!

[Eddy Swynar]

Hi Guys,

Well, I'm DELIGHTED to say that I've heard my first European DX of this season 
on Topband, in the form of DL6FBL calling CQ Contest...and this, a good half 
hour before my local sunset here.

HEARING some DX is certainly believing---that the band may NOT be a total 
wash-out after all this season, that is...! Now, actually WORKING some DX is 
another question! Hi Hi.

~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ
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Topband: Feedline; to ground, or not to ground?

[Phil Clements]

I have read several recent posts lately about feedline chokes and grounding
on 160 meter ground plane antennas. This has left me confused!

 

My full-size G.P. feed point is 60 feet above ground. There are three
radials that slope down from the feed point to about 10 feet above ground.
The system is tuned to resonance by a 1500 pf capacitor in series with the
radiating element. The heliax is attached to the antenna through a 1:1
balun. The heliax run is 400 feet long. Right now, the outer conductor
floats all the way to the entrance panel @ the ham shack, where it is bonded
and grounded.

 

Some suggest that the heliax have a ground kit installed at ground level,
where the cable leaves the tower base, where there are three ground rods,
and 100 buried radials. This would result in the outer conductor being
grounded at 60 feet and 400 feet from the antenna. Before the expense and
labor of a grounding kit installation, I seek your guidance and expertise on
this situation.

 

My inclination is to leave everything as-is, but I wonder if common-mode
current is being re-injected between the feed point balun and ground level?
The heliax run is inside the tower. (Rohn 25) I think that this provides
some additional shielding , but would strapping to ground at the base have
any advantages?

 

Many thanks in advance for your comments and advice!

 

(((73)))

Phil, K5PC

 

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Re: Topband: Total Length of Inverted-L wire?

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

Pretty much, the MODEL says that the low angle stays the same, and you fill
in the high angles. No loss to DX.  Why bother?

According to NEC4, my antenna plays better than it should.  One of the
interesting, unprovable antenna theory gut lurches is that moving a current
center high makes the "higher placed" RF less susceptible to absorption by
clutter in the area. In my NE direction take off at 5 degrees, from the
ground, the RF is subject to penetrating a THOUSAND feet of woods.  From 95
feet in the air the RF is subject to almost NONE.

How to prove that to standing-man-with-meter?  No way.  The difference is
clearly up in the air.  Whatever difference might be seen at the ground
will be forever bothered by decidedly arguable technical low to ground
issues that are anything but settled.  So we go to
sitting-man-with-meter-in-helicopter.  How do you prove that the woods had
attenuation at skywave angles?  You create the commercial version and the
high-placed current max version on the ground and then you cut down the
woods, with sitting-man-with-meter-in-helicopter measuring all the time.

Over my wife's dead body, and my neighbor's, and my neighbor's, and my
neighbor's, with this little inconvenience of the Wake County Sheriff's
Deputies.  Ain't gonna happen.

If you add this absorbative local clutter factor to PROVABLE losses in real
estate confined chop-job come-down radials, where the radiation center is
AT THE GROUND, you create the kind of monster losses that truly explain
some of the is-my-coax-connected-to-the-antenna anecdotes that I hear
repeatedly.

On 80 meters an up  67 out 67 foot halfwave L end-fed with a tank circuit
at the base, against simply pathetic ground, has always been the equal of
an inverted vee supported by a typical 50,60, 70 foot-ish tower at the
local level.  For DX the end-fed half wave L was always superior.

The models specifically say cannot be in their model universe.  But in
reality the models are wrong.  The models don't match RBN numbers.

However I have not been spending any time on that argument on 80.  This
little thing called FCP has me fairly well occupied.

The real shortage for the 80 end-fed half wave is the lack of a
commercially built remote tuner to handle that on 80 meters.  It MUST be
tuned to some degree, if not entirely at the base of the wire.  The SWR if
that is channeled in with coax to a tuner is outrageous otherwise.

Back to 160...   I deliberately invoked the  top of vertical current max,
in addition to the FCP, because I was trying to get every last shred of dB
to counter the PATHETIC performance of everything else I had tried for 160
in my property situation.

At that point I had simply thrown away all the conventional wisdom as
useless for my situation.

On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 8:52 PM, Mike Waters  wrote:

> 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  >wrote:
>
> >
> > I'm using an FCP at 7 feet with an 84 foot vertical wire plus 104'
> > horizontal.
> >
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Re: Topband: Boring Report - ZS1REC and 4Z1UF

[Joe Giacobello, K2XX]

Europe was coming through fairly well around 0500-0630Z here in SW VA 
last night, but there was lots of deep QSB.  I copied G3JMJ (who was not 
copying me very well), DF2PY, LA4HIA, LA3ANA, DL1AWI, OZ7YY and others.  
While conditions seemed much poorer than several years ago, they were 
the best I've experienced so far this season.  G3JMJ was copyable here 
for several hours with S4-5 sigs.  OZ7YY and DF2PY were S6-7 at times.


73, Joe
K2XX

On 11/10/2012 10:29 AM, Tree wrote:

The band seems to be coming alive here in Boring, Oregon.

Last night - I was able to copy ZS1REC for a good 10 minutes around his
sunrise.  However, Raoul had too much noise to copy me or N9RV.

This morning - I warmed up the shack calling CQ and was heard by 4Z1UF -
around my sunrise.  Ilya was able to do an antenna check with me and
reported I was louder when beaming North as opposed to broadside E/W and he
could not hear me at all when I beamed South (two element phased
verticals).  I wasn't able to hear him well enough to make a QSO however.

These two "half" QSOs are very encouraging however.

73 Tree N6TR/7
Boring, OR
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Re: Topband: Boring Report - ZS1REC and 4Z1UF

[Merv Schweigert]

Good news Tree,
I heard you calling cq this morning just after 1500Z,  and VE7CA was 
also down

a couple.   I had just gotten up (5AM here) and the amp was not warmed up.

I copied SV3RF the other evening after my sunset,  so the band has some life
to it.   I have not been on very much as yet due to some health 
problems, but

hope to be on at sunrise again daily as the season progresses.

Hearing nothing else this morning,  but anxiously waiting for the PT0S guys
as that would be a new one for me.
Only one new one this season,  that was RI1ANF some weeks ago.

73 Merv K9FD/KH6


The band seems to be coming alive here in Boring, Oregon.

Last night - I was able to copy ZS1REC for a good 10 minutes around his
sunrise.  However, Raoul had too much noise to copy me or N9RV.

This morning - I warmed up the shack calling CQ and was heard by 4Z1UF -
around my sunrise.  Ilya was able to do an antenna check with me and
reported I was louder when beaming North as opposed to broadside E/W and he
could not hear me at all when I beamed South (two element phased
verticals).  I wasn't able to hear him well enough to make a QSO however.

These two "half" QSOs are very encouraging however.

73 Tree N6TR/7
Boring, OR
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Topband: Boring Report - ZS1REC and 4Z1UF

[Tree]

The band seems to be coming alive here in Boring, Oregon.

Last night - I was able to copy ZS1REC for a good 10 minutes around his
sunrise.  However, Raoul had too much noise to copy me or N9RV.

This morning - I warmed up the shack calling CQ and was heard by 4Z1UF -
around my sunrise.  Ilya was able to do an antenna check with me and
reported I was louder when beaming North as opposed to broadside E/W and he
could not hear me at all when I beamed South (two element phased
verticals).  I wasn't able to hear him well enough to make a QSO however.

These two "half" QSOs are very encouraging however.

73 Tree N6TR/7
Boring, OR
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