The Beverage antenna is a special receiving antenna suitable primarily for the lower KV bands. V CQ WPX Conteste tím OM0A používal beverage anténu na 80m v smere na severzópad. Mal som možnosť v nedeľu ráno pracovať na 80m a the contribution of the beverage antenna was considerable. In what?
In our location, there is not a high level of industrial interference, but the beverage significantly reduced the interference of the European stations, making the US stations easy to read, even if according to the S-meter the signal did not strengthen. Interference from stations from the given direction (especially DL) has also been significantly reduced. The benefit of beverage compared to inv.V was noticeable only at stations from PA and G. The benefit was particularly noticeable in the EU segment, where connection with some US stations would be difficult to achieve.
So how to make a beverage antenna?
Material list
Two grounding pins (1.5m), 180m solid wire, at least eight supports with a height of 2m made of wood or other insulating material, transformer 9:1 and non-inductive resistor 470 ohm/2W.
It is clear from the above that beverage antenna has considerable dimensions (length). Above all, these dimensions determine the width of the radiation lobe and the vertical angle at which the antenna receives. A shorter antenna has less gain and a wider radiation lobe.
The 9:1 transformer is a key component. Getting the Amidon BN 73-202 two-hole cores was not easy, but I can definitely recommend the transformer according to W8JI. In our version, a band pass is also added preamplifier. You can find the description at www.CQ.sk.
A significant part of the work was the construction of wooden supports. Since the ground is still frozen at the end of March, we fixed each one with short cables. It is more convenient to make iron preparations that are pushed into the ground and supports are placed in them. They can be, for example, pipes of a suitable diameter or angles with handles.
I hammered the ground pins into the ground back in the fall. The connection between the pin and the antenna is made with SK tape.
The antenna wire must be strong enough to withstand the necessary pull. The antenna should not have large overhangs between the supports, so it is necessary to crimp the wire. A thinner wire cannot withstand that pull.
It took us about two hours to build the beverage antenna, the time will be significantly reduced when using preparations for fixing the supports.