Cross Country Wireless Beverage Antenna Amplifier
Cross Country Wireless Beverage Antenna Amplifier
Cross Country Wireless have designed a "masthead" amplifier for a Beverage antenna and a Multicoupler to feed five receivers from one Beverage antenna .
The Beverage Antenna Amplifier is now available (see below) but this web page details some testing done as part of a talk at the Bolton Wireless Club on 22nd October 2018.
To make a temporary portable Beverage antenna a 40m length of wire was laid across a car park from SW to NE. This was fed to the amplifier with a 10m square of wire (a Loop on Ground antenna used for a later demonstration) being used as a counterpoise ground. The end of the 40m wire was left open circuit. This actually replicates at HF Beverage's original test of his Wave antenna idea in the 1920's.
During the talk three transceivers (an Icom IC-M600, Yaesu FT-450D and a Yaesu FT-817) were connected to the Multicoupler to see what could be heard. On the 80m amateur band strong signals were heard from Russia, Germany and Scarborough (a UK station in direct line with the antenna pattern). Very low noise was noted even though the club meeting point is in the middle of a large housing estate. The very high signal to noise performance of a Beverage antenna was very noticeable. Radio amateurs from Russia were also heard at high signal strength on the 40m band and the "Buzzer" from Moscow on 4625 kHz was very loud. The RWM time signal on 9996 kHz was also heard strongly despite the band being "closed" at that time of evening.
The image shows the temporary portable Beverage antenna pattern over average ground modeled with 4NEC2 for the 80m amateur band. From what we heard the antenna model is accurate.
The 10m loop used for the counterpoise was later connected to the Beverage antenna amplifier as a Loop on Ground antenna. This also gave a good low noise performance and demonstrated a practical low noise receive antenna that many radio amateurs could find space to build.
Many thanks to the members of the Bolton Wireless Club for helping erect and dismantle the antenna and for bringing radios to test the antenna on the night.
Here are links to various documents and web pages mentioned during the talk:
Beverage's paper for the A.I.E.E in 1922. The 56 page report that covers the Beverage antenna development in full
Beverage's 9 page article for QST.
Beverage's 1921 original patent for the Wave antenna
Beverage's 1923 patent covering additional Wave antenna developments
Link to the KK5JY page on the Loop on Ground antenna
The Beverage Antenna Amplifier is now available for sale.
Specifications:
Frequency range: 20 kHz to 35 MHz
Input impedance: 450 ohms
Output impedance: 50 ohms
OIP2: >+75 dBm
OIP3: >+37.5 dBm
Gain: 20 dB at 14 MHz
Noise figure: 0.79 dB
Supply voltage (head unit): 4.5 to 15V from a bias-tee feed via the coaxial cable
Supply current (head unit fed with 12V bias-tee): 80 mA
Outdoor unit connectors: Two M6 stainless steel threaded studs and BNC female (RF out 50 ohms)
Bias tee connections: BNC female (RF input and DC feed to outdoor unit), BNC female (RF output to receiver), 2.1 mm DC power connector for 5 to 12 V feed
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Contact us for a quotation.