> Until recently, I have mostly used my TX antenna for
> receiving. I live in the country with a pretty quiet
> location and have been able to get away with this.
>
> A year ago, I put up my first real beverage - and was very
> pleased with how it works. It is straight - on level ground
> - about 750 feet long.
>
> Last weekend, I put up a second beverage - but not in as good
> of a place.
> My goal was to improve my listening ability to Japan - where a large
> number of points are available for me in the 160 contests.
>
> My best location for the beverage starts near one end of the existing
> beverage, but then sloping down the side of a ravine. The
> beverage ended
> up being 180 meters long (measured with a MFJ-259) and slopes
> down about
> 30 meters over its length. It ends up 30 meters below
> average terrain -
> in the middle of a ravine that is probably about 100 meters wide. It
> wasn't clear to me that this would work.
>
> The ravine runs mostly north/south. The beverage is on the
> east side of
> the ravine.
>
> This AM, I woke up early enough to catch a few JAs before
> they went to bed -
> and the performance of the beverage was stunning. One
> station could not be copied on the TX antenna, but was 449 on
> the beverage.
>
> Needless to say, I am happy with it.
>
> I write this as inspiration to those of you who might be
> holding back from
> trying a beverage because you don't have an optimum place to
> put it. I
> sure wish I would have done this 15 years ago! I am going to
> put up a similar one on the other side of the ravine that
> will be pointing over the north pole.
>
> 73 Tree N6TR/7
> tree@kkn.net
I agree, try one. I put out 500' of insulated wire on the ground and fed it
with a DX Engineering feed unit. I have not tried any termination as yet. It
may be down a bit on sensitivity compared to a single wire up off the
ground, but the improved SN ratio over my transmit antenna makes the
difference bewteen hearing them or not.
Optimal... not hardly..usable? Very.
73 John W8JJW
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