Beverage

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Details

Category: 160 M

At the moment I have 2 beverages, in two directions – 310 and 60 degrees. Both are 170m long, and I find it as optimum compromise between directivity and gain. Of course, if you have enough of space for more beverages, you can extend the length on 360m, on each 45 degrees, but longer beverages will not make your reception more spectacular.

 

Well, the standard impedance of a Beverage antenna is close to 450 Ohm. So you need to make a 9:1 transformer to drop this impedance to 50 Ohm.
You can do that easily with impedance transformer like this:
 
Winding is made with 6 turns of trifilar copper isolated wire 0.7mm in diameter.
First one is A-B, second one C-D and last one E-F.
You can use a FT-82-43 core or any other appropriated material.
After winding, I always check return los on spectrum analyzer with tracing generator, and after prove of my correct winding and characteristic of transformers I continue with work.
The balun must be mounted in a waterproof plastic box with a RF connector (50 Ohm) and 2 outputs made of screws for the wire (450 Ohm) and the ground.

Schematic of YT6A beverage antenna

Also, do not forget to put CMC transformer after balun. CMC transformer can be winding with thin teflon coaxial cable on ferrite core, and also checked on instruments. Without CMC transformer coaxial cable easily can become part of antenna (specifically if it is longer length) and then you will not have diagram as you need to have.

For grounding beverage on both sides I use four radials, each 10m long. Radials are connected on 450 ohms resistor on the end of beverage, and on the ground of impedance transformer of antenna.