[160m] Beverage ground rods

[Pete Rimmel - Marine Chemist - N8PR]

I have seen several thoughts on grounding...  Misek in his Beverage Antenna 
handbook says that at high fequuencies a nearly lossless ground is 
important.  He even goes so far as to run a ground wire between the two 
grounds at each end of the antenna.  At low frequencies, he suggests that 
the ground be inefficient so that a tilt angle is created on the incoming 
signal, thus creating a larger forward or reverse vector force in the wire.

This conincides with what I understand of the theory, and to work well...  a 
3-4 ft ground rod is enough to "bleed off" the signal to ground in the 
unwanted direction.  All you want  to do is create a way for the signal to 
not be reflected back down the wire.  There is no significant power here, 
being microvolt sigtnals, and no great current carrying capacity is 
required.  However, good connections are required.

Here in Florida, I have a 3 foot ground rod on my 260 ft beverage and it 
seems to work well.  It is in about 12" of soil and then 2 ft of sand. 
Sometimes the sand is waterlogged and sometimes it is dry.  I do not see any 
noticible difference between wet and dry, which says to me that the ground 
is working.

73, PeteR  N8PR


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Bragassa" <bragassa at consolidated.net>
To: <160m at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2005 6:40 AM
Subject: [160m] Beverage ground rods


> What does theory say and experience say:
>
> Is it imperative to ground a Beverage at each end; in this case several 
> ground rods configured around the feed/terminating ends?
> Going further:
> Should  the different circuits (9:1 Xfmr, preamp)  within the Beverage 
> feed point be grounded separate and not tied to a mutual ground?
> Is there a spacing requirement for these ground rods?
>
> Thanks, Mike, K5UO
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