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Author Topic: The Beverage Antenna, 100 Years Later  (Read 2299 times)

Offline ChrisSmolinski

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The Beverage Antenna, 100 Years Later
« on: November 03, 2021, 1200 UTC »
Well worth reading, this article describes how a Beverage antenna actually works, which is very useful if you decide to build one. I have two here, a 500 ft aimed northeast to Europe, and an unterminated 400 ft aimed south, which also works well due north. I leave it un-terminated specifically to listen to an otherwise weak pirate / part 15 station on 1620 kHz  :)

http://www.arrl.org/files/file/QST/This%20Month%20in%20QST/2021/11%20November%202021/Silver%20Donovan.pdf
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Offline RobRich

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Re: The Beverage Antenna, 100 Years Later
« Reply #1 on: November 03, 2021, 2052 UTC »
The beverage can be a great traveling wave antenna, and agreed, even as just basically an unterminated wire on the ground.

I used to have an 148' unterminated beverage-on-ground pointing vaguely NW/SE. It was good for monitoring continental NA amateur comms on 80m through 20m, and decent off the other end for listening to MW to mid-HF Caribbean broadcast stations.
« Last Edit: November 04, 2021, 2332 UTC by RobRich »
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Elf36

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Re: The Beverage Antenna, 100 Years Later
« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2021, 0011 UTC »
Yeah. definitely have plans for one. Just hope I can get it pointed in a good direction. A lot of people use them for the receive on 80/160 receive set-up's. and transmit on a different antenna. I gotta admit though, don't you need as much of a good antenna to transmit back though? Providing they're not using such a great receive antenna?

Offline RobRich

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Re: The Beverage Antenna, 100 Years Later
« Reply #3 on: November 04, 2021, 0426 UTC »
Often the idea on the lower bands is to optimize the receive signal-to-noise ratio due to higher noise profiles at lower frequencies. The idea is regardless of whatever other operators are using, you can not work them if you can not hear them. ;)

You have the scenario right. Many HF ops use a vertical or inverted-L to transmit and a beverage or similar directional SNR-optimized antenna system for receive on the low-HF bands. Verticals can be great for transmitting DX on 160 and 80, but sometimes quite noisy on receive, especially is subjected to nearby manmade RFI.

Regardless of band, think about how many comparatively low-power and/or antenna-limited stations often can work much larger stations having stacked beams, curtain arrays, multiple beverages, etc. The smaller stations are relying on the larger stations to do most of the so-called "heavy lifting" for both transmit and receive.
Tampa, FL USA | US Map Grid EL88
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148' + 60' Loops-on-Ground | 30' Inverted Delta Loop | 31' Vertical | 18' End-Fed Vertical

Offline ChrisSmolinski

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Re: The Beverage Antenna, 100 Years Later
« Reply #4 on: November 04, 2021, 1050 UTC »
I gotta admit though, don't you need as much of a good antenna to transmit back though? Providing they're not using such a great receive antenna?

Beverages are for receiving and not, IIRC, for transmitting.
Chris Smolinski
Westminster, MD
eQSLs appreciated! csmolinski@blackcatsystems.com
netSDR / AFE822x / AirSpy HF+ / KiwiSDR / 900 ft Horz skyloop / 500 ft NE beverage / 250 ft V Beam / 58 ft T2FD / 120 ft T2FD / 400 ft south beverage / 43m, 20m, 10m  dipoles / Crossed Parallel Loop / Discone in a tree

Offline Brian

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Re: The Beverage Antenna, 100 Years Later
« Reply #5 on: November 04, 2021, 2156 UTC »
I gotta admit though, don't you need as much of a good antenna to transmit back though? Providing they're not using such a great receive antenna?

Beverages are for receiving and not, IIRC, for transmitting.
Definately not for transmitting with.

Offline RobRich

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Re: The Beverage Antenna, 100 Years Later
« Reply #6 on: November 04, 2021, 2334 UTC »
AFAIK, it has been done for experimetation, but yeah, much of the power is going to end up in the terminating resistor as heat. o.0

Remove the terminating resistor, and a beverage is little more than a low longwire, which is another type of travelling wave antenna if long enough.
Tampa, FL USA | US Map Grid EL88
My pubic receivers: KiwiSDR 2 | Web-888 SDR
Airspy HF+ Discovery | 2x Msi2500 Msi001 | 2x RTL-SDR V3 + NE602 | 2x RTL-SDR V4
148' + 60' Loops-on-Ground | 30' Inverted Delta Loop | 31' Vertical | 18' End-Fed Vertical

Offline NQC

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Re: The Beverage Antenna, 100 Years Later
« Reply #7 on: November 06, 2021, 0038 UTC »
Hey All
 
I've  read a good bit about Harold Beverage,a  fascinating man.

FWIW, Many years ago I laid 2000 ft of  single  conductor field  telephone wire from tree to tree down to the swamp where I could vary the resistance  feeding the  gnd rod.

I  fooled around by sending  audio from the receiver down the antenna via a cheap 49 Mhz transmitter loosely coupled to the antenna . It allowed me to make some seeming  "adjustments" by placing my hand held scanner near the wire and varying the resistance in the swamp.

I was pretty green re radio knowledge then .  In  retrospect not  really definitive as to what was actually going on re "adjustments " , but fun to play with . One heck of an antenna  and no problems despite being line of sight to  monster WRKO at one mile. Lots of LW b'casts and sferic fun .

Once I inadvertently got  a   good zap     by   induced lightning current from a  storm around 4 miles  ( moving away). Stupid. Dangerous. Interesting.

Ah , youth.

K
« Last Edit: November 09, 2021, 1348 UTC by NQC »
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Offline Josh

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Re: The Beverage Antenna, 100 Years Later
« Reply #8 on: November 25, 2021, 2341 UTC »
Hey All
 
I've  read a good bit about Harold Beverage,a  fascinating man.

FWIW, Many years ago I laid 2000 ft of  single  conductor field  telephone wire from tree to tree down to the swamp where I could vary the resistance  feeding the  gnd rod.

I  fooled around by sending  audio from the receiver down the antenna via a cheap 49 Mhz transmitter loosely coupled to the antenna . It allowed me to make some seeming  "adjustments" by placing my hand held scanner near the wire and varying the resistance in the swamp.

I was pretty green re radio knowledge then .  In  retrospect not  really definitive as to what was actually going on re "adjustments " , but fun to play with . One heck of an antenna  and no problems despite being line of sight to  monster WRKO at one mile. Lots of LW b'casts and sferic fun .

Once I inadvertently got  a   good zap     by   induced lightning current from a  storm around 4 miles  ( moving away). Stupid. Dangerous. Interesting.

Ah , youth.

K

Regarding zaps someone I know runs a lot of bevs and he regularly replaces terminating resistors, I suggested bypass them with a gas discharge or neon bulb and using higher wattage resistors and see how it fares. That reduced the replacements but for the closest and strongest of zaps.
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