[Elecraft] [OT] Diversity Receiving Antennas

[Dave Van Wallaghen]

Hi all,

This is only somewhat off topic I think. As I've been playing with 
diversity reception with my K3, I started researching using Beverage 
antennas and found some good info on the web and in my ARRL books. Right 
now, I'm just using an unterminated long wire (about 350') and plugging 
it directly into the Aux RF port with no impedance transformer. As is, 
it is working nicely for me on 20-40m when I operate during the day out 
in my yard. With diversity receive enabled on the K3, I'm able to copy 
weak signals masked by QSB and the normal summer QRN. It always seems to 
me that I can hear the signal in one ear or the other if not both most 
of the time.

So, I started looking at doing a real implementation of a Beverage on my 
property as I do have some room to play with. I could run one east and 
west for about 400' or so and another north and south for 550' or so if 
I run it through my neighbors lots along a fence line (they don't really 
use this area of their property). As I was researching the various 
implementations, I came across the K9AY loop which looked pretty 
interesting. I thought I might combine using the two aforementioned 
beverages with a K9AY oriented in a NW-SE & NE-SW orientation.

In much of the literature I've read about this antenna, I see with the 
designed dimensions, most use it for 80m & 160m. But I've also read a 
couple of articles that state it should be good from 300 khz - 30 Mhz. 
At this point, I really don't do a lot of operating on 80m or 160m and 
kind of stick around the 20m, 30m and 40m bands. I'm not a contester and 
primarily a CW op, but like to work weak signals and run QRP.

So my question to the group is, for those using diversity reception (or 
separate receive antennas), and using a K9AY - does it perform well on 
the HF bands for this purpose? I would also like any input from those 
who have both Beverages and K9AY for comparison. And, does it make sense 
to use the setup as I described? Since I can only run Beverages in a 
couple of directions, I thought the K9AY use in the other directions 
would cover a lot of bases.

I you think this is way too OT, please feel free to contact me 
privately. I don't want to clog up the reflector if no one else thinks 
this is of interest.

Thanks in advance & 73,
Dave W8FGU