I have tried to use a special receive receive antenna in the CQ WPX Contest. Team OM0A has run M2 category and beverage antennas was the last antenna that we have built on Friday’s evening. Luckily I was on the 80m band during the morning’s openning to Carribean and North America.

It’s a huge difference between inv.Vee and beverage antenna. Even though our location has a very low noise, the main improvement was in the attenuation of local stations. Not only stations from other directions, but also closest stations from OK and DL. Heavy QRM gone and I could copy sigs from stateside. Some of them was in the same strenght as on inv.Vee antenna, some was louder.

I break pile-up and start hunting W stations. Unbeliveble hour! Comparing to other stations from Slovakia, our result on 80m is better! I love beverage antenna.

How to built it?

Beverage antenna is simply and cheap antenna, but not easy to built. You need a lot of space or a long thin garden. If you don’t have enough space, try other antennas as K9AY loops.

I have built 9:1 transformer with bandpass filter and small preamplifier (see other post on this web). This is not necessary but should improve results.

I found in shack non-inductive one 470 Ohms resistor. It is fitted in the waterproof plastic box. Not sure if it is best value for terminating resistor, but antennas works.

We choose single wire 178m long beverage in NW direction. First, do a proper ground terminations. We have hammered 150cm pipes in the ground. The junction between wire and rod is made by metal hose clamp.

We have used a special military wire with steel core. Steve OM7KW got a roll for bargain price.

There is a lot of work with wooden supports. We have used 1,5m tall supports with a clamps on the top. Each support was stabilized by two ropes. Despite we have used only nine supports, it tooks two hours to erect them.

The wire must have tension. Beware of big overhangs. Steel core wire was very good solution.