Listening Antennas @ AE9B

I must admit.. one of my early fascinations about ham radio was with antennas. I remember making a 6 meter loop and running my IC-706 in my Brookfield, Illinois home on a 60 foot wide lot. Can you say "Hello neighbor"? Try six meters on a homemade loop antenna on the porch at about gutter height. I worked some NJ some Texas and Florida as I recall. I also learned my first lesson about RFI. My solution was to move to a 5 acre lot in the next state. Sort of....  Here you'll see the antennas, permanent and temporary that I've used both at home and on trips.

     

Antennas @ AE9B

Single wire Beverage

 		I have used beverage antennas for listening for a couple years now. I can't honestly say I have a good grasp of how they work and as I listen to many of the top band Guru's discuss the topic, it is apparent that there is no consensus as to how they actually perform. there is little question however, that long wires properly transformed have the properties of hearing well with less noise (due to directionality). This single wire beverage used a tapered end at both sides and a transformed wound by ON4UN himself. I used a variable resistor and swept the MFJ Antenna tuner through a wide range to find minimal variation in SWR. A method W8JI recommends on his web site to find the correct termination resistance. Once the resistance was found, I inserted a carbon composition resistor (actually a couple in parallel) at the far end.

Two Wire Beverage

I learned about the two wire beverage through reading but saw my first system at the home of N0TT. Charlie is a meticulous builder of fine electronics and loves his ham radio. He showed me how this works and although I couldn't eloquently duplicate his explanation, it uses a "reflection" device which allows for reception from either direction. Although it requires 2 wires (in his case 450 Ohm ladder line, I use 300 Ohm) it allows you to use one space for two directions. NE/SW, NW/SE, serves me very well to EU/VK, and JA/Carib. I use metal T-Post supports with 1-1/2" PVC sleeves over them (fits great) with a slot cut in the PVC to accept the ladder line and a wire tie of piece of wire to hold it in place. Charlie made a remote switch device for me which allows for selection of any of my listening antennas from one switch at my desk top.
K9AY Loop

I first used the K9AY loop in the winter of 2002. Always looking for another listening antenna, I thought I would try this time tested device. Purchased from a vendor in Texas, I assembled the system as specified but must admit that I'm not extremely impressed with it. It serves as an alternative reception antenna and has its moments when it shines but the beverages above seem to outperform it most of the time. I would say that it is a good reception antenna for the space limited or for intercontinental reception with less noise.
Flag

I hope to try a flag antenna this year (2003) for the Stew Perry Contest I will inform about the results if/when I use it.