Beverage Antenna
This antenna was removed from service in 2011. The Beverage antenna consists of approximately 41 m of 16 AWG insulated antenna wire. It is terminated at the receiver end by a DX Engineering DXE-BFS-1 single-direction, Beverage Feed System, and at the far end by an Industrial Communication Engineers 185A Beverage Matching Unit. The matching unit is set to 450 ohms and bonded to an 8 ft ground rod driven in native soil adjacent to a small creek. The antenna wire is sloped at both ends so that the terminations are fairly close to ground level, resulting in minimum bonding lead lengths. It's height at the highest point is about 6 m, and it is oriented N-S.
Beverage Feed System mounted about 2.5 m above ground
level.
The bond to the earth grounding system is on the upper-left and
connection to the antenna wire is on the upper-right under the wing-
nuts. The RG-6
coaxial cable feedline is the black cable in the middle.
The brown goop is LPS-3 Aircraft Rust Inhibitor applied to the
connections to reduce corrosion.
Beverage Matching Unit mounted on a green steel gardening
stake and bonded to an 8 ft ground rod (an orange visibility
marker is taped to the top of the stake). The antenna insulator
and tension spring are visible directly above the green stake at
the top of the picture. A small creek is
directly behind the installation.
Moose are attracted to the
willow brush along the creek and are a
constant nuisance (by the way, moose stew is great).
Close-up of the 185A Beverage Matching Unit showing antenna
termination
at the 450 ohm position on the right (black wire).
The earth ground is connected to the stud
on the left (green wire).
