A $50 Beverage
YCCC Scuttlebutt #119, October, 1995
I built my first Beverage this past year. It was so easy I can't believe
I lived without one. Here's how to do it:
- Go to Home Depot (or other large hardware store) and buy a 500 ft
roll #16 THHN or MTW wire. It's available in every color you can imagine
for about $15 per 500/ft roll. Also get two 8' ground rods.
- Go to local feed store and get some electric fence insulators. This
cost me about $3.
- Call your favorite radio dealer and order an ICE Beverage matching
box. Cost: about $30.
- Go to Radio Shack and get a 400-600 ohm resistor. I actually used
four (4) 2KW resistors in parallel.
- Roll out the wire in the desired direction. Mount the fence
insulators to convenient trees (my Beverage is not perfectly straight)
about 7-9 feet up. Install a ground rod at each end. Connect one end of
the wire to ground through the resistor. Connect the other end to the
matching box (which is also grounded). Connect coax. Enjoy!
I did follow the conventional wisdom of sloping the ends down. I used 4
foot ground rods at each end. I only have room for a 500 foot run. W3LPL has
pointed out that 580' might be a better length. It’s simple to solder some
more wire on.
This antenna makes 80 and 160 enjoyable. Less than $50 to hear Europeans
all summer on the LF bands seems like a good deal if you have the space!
When the antenna broke this summer, I used a split bolt connector to join
the two pieces back together. You can find these for about $1 in the
electrical aisle of the Home Depot (or hardware store). No solder required!
