Posted by
Gary Smith-2 on
Jan 31, 2010; 5:23pm
URL: http://elecraft.85.s1.nabble.com/K3-Beverages-on-160-tp4490135.html
I just posted this to the topband reflector thinking I might get some
help from the folks who know about beverages for low band Dxing.
Perhaps something in my K3 is not configured as well as it should be
and that's maybe a cause of my problems so I'm posting this here as
well. The answer lies somewhere between my expectations for Rx
antennae and high atmospheric noise I'm hearing.
My K3 is pretty well fully loaded and has a Sub Rx and a KXV3. The Rx
antenna coax goes to the end of a BNC "T" where the shaft of the T
connects to the Aux RF BNC and then the coax at the other end of the
"T" connects to the left Rx Ant BNC on the KXV3.
Here's what I posted to Topband:
------------ Post to topband------------
Well, it was a scramble trying to make these hastily thrown together
beverages for the contest. I found some interesting discoveries which
means I need to learn more.
Radio is a K3. The preamp is turned off in the K3
Beverage 1 runs from the house to the east and is 500' long. The wire
comes in through the window sill and is held up by branches & it
dips,. It has no termination resistor. The matching transformer is
next to the window. The ground is connected to the station ground
rod.
Beverage 2 runs due north and is 350 feet long. it is connected to
100' of TV cable and it is grounded at the feed point 100' from the
house where the matching transformer is. There is a 350 ohm carbon
resistor (parallelled resistors) at the north tip and a 6' ground rod
in swamp muck
Both Beverages are about 8 feet off the ground except #1 which is
settling down in the marsh reeds to where it will be closer to the
ground at the distal end.
K9AY is beside the house
INV-L is 350 feet from the house, about 70 radials 130' each.
Problem for me for an example is I can not hear JAs where others in
the area are working them.
My K9AY is much better in killing atmospheric noise than the vertical
but it still does not pick up those JAs.
So I decided to try these beverages to see how they do.
My discoveries are thus: Both Beverages are full of atmospheric
noise. Both of the beverages definitely had a good gain over the K9AY
but the K9AY heard most everything these beverages heard but the
noise was tremendously lower than the Beverages. The RF signals were
attenuated a bit but the S/N ratio was by far better with the K9AY.
I have the K3 configured so the main receiver listens through the Inv-
L and the sub receiver uses the Rx antennae. I have all 3 Rx ants on
a coax switch and this goes into the control head of the K9AY so I
can use that pre is I wish.
The atmospheric noise was so bad with the beverages I sometimes found
it better to use just the main Rx & the Inv-L only to cut down on the
atmospheric.
It's my understanding the Beverage is supposed to be a quiet antenna
but as mine are not, perhaps there's an obvious reason why mine
behave so badly? #1 is in a salt marsh with nothing around it and #2
runs along the marsh and terminates just before railroad tracks.
I surely must be doing something wrong.
Thanks
Gary
KA1J
----------end---------------
Any suggestions on how I have my K3 setup?
73,
Gary
KA1J
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