[HCDX]: Beverages unidirectionality

["Guido Schotmans" <gs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I followed the Bev-discussion with special interest.  Some months ago, to be
more precise, on November 13, 14 and 15 we had with DX-Antwerp a DX-weekend
in Kasterlee, Belgium.  But for the second consecutive time we had bad luck
with propagation.  A-index was going up to an average peak of 60.  So we
didn't catch much and concentrated more on dxing UK-locals. We had rolled
out 3 beverage antennas on the ground directed to the East coast of NAm
(600m - 305°), to SAm (500 m - 225°) and to the Far East (450 m -40°).  The
difference in directionality was noticeable very clear, but we couldn't
notice a unidirectional pattern.  Our beverages were terminated via a 1K
potmeter to a x-shape grounding rod of about 1.80 m. and fed the coax via a
balun.  At the balun side we had a ground rod too.  The antenna wire was
going via the balun to the rod. After erecting the bev-antennas we tuned our
receiver to a station on the opposite site of the wanted direction and tried
to tune the potmeters to minimum signal.  But unfortunately we couldn't find
for no one of our 3 bevs a potmeter position giving minimum signal for an
opposite station.  In fact there was no difference at all between min. and
max. potmeter-resistance.

Soil consisted of sand in a pine woody surrounding, but the underground was
very wet caused by the never lasting rain the weeks before.

Has anybody an idea why we didn' manage to give our antennas the wanted
unidirectionality ?

Guido.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a message from "Guido Schotmans" <gs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
to hard-core-dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx list. To unsubscribe the list, send
"unsubscribe hard-core-dx" in mail body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
For more information, please check http://www.iki.fi/rko/hard-core-dx/
or email Risto Kotalampi, risto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------------------------------------------------------------