Short Beverages: a few ideas

[rcotro@xxxxxxxxxxx (Rocco Cotroneo)]

This message is sent by rcotro@xxxxxxxxxxx (Rocco Cotroneo)
to hard-core-dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:


Hi,
a couple of remarks on Beverage antennas for MW. Unfortunately, too much
theory and little practical experiences have been around in past years on
bulletins. After two years trying and trying different "short Beverage"
solutions in our countryside place, we have come up to the following:

1) Directional effects on MW start at about 70-80 mt lenght and don't get
much better up to 150 mt (maximum lenght we could try )

2) When trying solution over 150 mt, we noticed that going up and down a
hill does NOT work. An aerial just long the "up" side of a triangle works
more or less the same way the whole solution

3) If you can't enjoy a real flat land always point your antenna to the
horizon. Placing a wire on a downhill is very disappointing.

4) An antenna crossing a valley, a slope, or placed very high between two
trees often behaves in a weird way. It is still directional somehow, but it
also picks up strange lobes. Moreover, termination looks uneffective,
compared to the straight "near the land" solution.

5) We have never seen a "short beverage" giving the same results on the
whole MW dial. It works better on higher frequency - and this is quite
normal - but it is also very irregular in terms of directivity and nulling
back signals.

6) Last but not least. After we took a break, 6 months ago, on a sort of
"final solution" with three 150 longwires terminated and one 100mt dipole,
we found out that:
- the dipole offers stronger gain over the three wires, but higher noise
- every night is a different story. It looks like the God of the ionosphere
decides every day which is the best wire we put. And, believe us or not, it
is not just a question of propagation...

Did you have similar experiences?

Bye everybody, and enjoy next MW season. We Mediterrean guys we'll try to
do our best to keep up...

Rocco Cotroneo
Andrea Lawendel
(Play-dx, Milan, Italy)


--
Redistribution of the material is not allowed without permission of
original poster or Kotanet Communications Ltd. Contributions to the
list are very welcome to hard-core-dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
For more information about hard-core-dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx email to
owner-hard-core-dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
--