Re: [HCDX]: Re: Beverages

[David Onley <donley@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:22 18/01/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Another concern besides deer, elk and kids (I liked that story Werner!) are
>snowmobiles and 4 wheelers (atv's), plan on putting those antenna's up high
>enough so they don't come in contact with the wire (including snow pack
>which is 3 feet around here these days), think of the liability.

Have just returned from a weeks listening at the Coorong in South Australia
and have enjoyed reading all these posts on Beverages.

Most of the trip it was 43C (110F) and our greatest concern was not the
wildlife chewing through the antenna (Kangaroos) it was more the snake
infested areas when it came to erecting the poles and then bringing the 3 x
600m bevs back in.

We wore knee high rubber gum boots (In knee high grass) however you felt
very ordinary about being there everytime something moved nearby.

We saw half a dozen deadly brown snakes (Being 60km from civilization made
us cautious too) We Brushed up on the snakebite treatment as a precaution.

We ran our bevs out on 5'0 foot wooden tomato stakes. A few people tend to
run their bevs along the ground however I have found that putting them on
the stakes or poles really does improve things.

I was never a great rap for terminating the antenna however in recent times
we have found that it does bleed a lot of noise away. We used coax and
baluns too at the receiver end and preamps for daytime/evening dx. After
dark however the preamps had little effect. Caused a fair bit of overloading
and images too..

The earthing did work as well (For noise) We have tried a few things such as
galv water pipes into the soil (Sandy at the coorong) also copper pipe. It
seemed to bleed a lot of noise away.. Had to keep watering those though.

Luckily for us we had 2 pieces of old railway line buried deeply into the
soil (Acted as a clothes line) what a fantastic earth.. better than the
copper pipe or the water pipes.

I've been interested to read comments about the height of the beverages. A
few years back at Woodside Beach we ran an antenna along the ground and then
raised it in areas while the receiver was going. There was a definate
improvement in signal when the antenna was raised off the ground.. Quite a
few S points.

We have run antennas 10'0 feet high in the past. You have your normal 5'0
stake hammered into the ground. We have then had some plastic piping cut
about 1'0 in size with a nail slotted through the centre. We just put this
over the top of the stake in the ground and then put another pole on top.
Works really well.

We have used fibreglass rods too but they tend to bend too much in the wind.

I can't say that we have noticed that much difference between antennas 5
feet or 10 feet off the ground. Its just too hard to judge because you can
never be too sure if conditions have changed.. You need to run thenm side by
side however what effect does this have being so close?

I'm also curious at Pat Martins comments about running antennas along the
top of barbed wire fences. I've often wondered if the wire below the bev
screws things up.. like some sort of coupling etc.

Cheers
Dave


 

  

 

 


This Email originated from David Onley
Mediumwave & Tropical Band Dxer
Melbourne, Australia
Http://www.vds.com.au/~donley/dxing.html

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