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beverage

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General info on the Beverage

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Ground and terminate
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Why terminate a Beverage

Discussion on hcdx list, October 1999
Patrick Martin, USA: Does anyone know if the only reason to terminate a beverage is to kill the signal off the other end? In other words, are there are other advantages to having a beverage terminated?

Alf Årdal, Norway: The main reason for terminating a beverage antenna is to reduce the signal from the receiver end, which isn't always easy, but one way or another the lobes from this end will be reduced.
At the same time the front lobe(s) will be narrowed, and you will get a "peaking" lobe(s) towards the area you have erected the antenna.
But theory and practice doesn't always follow each other, ground conditions can vary from day to day, season to season; which can be related with height, and the thickness of the wire.
But my two golden rules are:
1. The thicker wire is the better, and if you want to listen to a area/continent, terminate the far end; but try with different values - 470-560 ohms will fit fine, under most conditions.
2. A good grounding base, both at the far end, and at the balun/transformer connection.
With these two things fulfilled, you have a real good start for further expertiments!

Don Moore, USA: Both here in Iowa and previously in Michigan, I have used unterminated beverages.
In both cases it was for one reason. My beverages had to point north (or actually slightly to the northwest) but I wanted to receive signals from the south from Latin America.
Unterminated beverages allowed me to do that and worked quite well. Grounding and static charges were not an issue, as at the receiver end, my beverages were connected to a 10:1 balun which was grounded.

Jorma Mäntylä, Finland: Terminating the other end of the Beverage makes it unidirectional. But this is not the only advantage.
Another effect of the resistor is that it makes the receiving angle of the antenna lower. This effect is found both at the main lobe and at the secondary back lobe.
This simply reduces interference of regional stations and strenghtens long-distance signals. The reason is that long-distance- signals need more ionospheric hops than regional signals.
Here is Scandinavia it means that most European interference comes from stations with one ionospheric hop while Trans-Atlantic signals & Far East stations need 3-4 ionospheric hops. In practice interfering European signals come to Scandinavia in 10-30 degrees angle while Trans-Atlantic & Far East signals arrive in 3-8 degrees angle.
Because of this I wouldn't call long antennas without resistors as Beverage. The resistor is the soul of the Beverage - without it the antenna is a long-wire antenna.

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