Introduction

Receiving wire antennas are useful on 160 and 80 meters, where rotatable antennas are impractical for all but a few lucky hams.  The noise is so high on these bands that efficiency can be sacrificed with a negligible effect on receive signal to noise ratio.

Additional information on this subject and related topics can be found in back issues of QST and the following:

The ARRL Antenna Book
ARRL's Wire Antenna Classics
ON4UN's Low-Band DXing
DXing on the Edge

The ARRL has an extensive catalog of books and materials related to Amateur Radio.

Articles

Note: Some of the following articles are in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. To view and print these files, you'll need a copy of Adobe's Acrobat Reader program. (Version 3.0 or later required). More information here.

Beverage

• The Classic Beverage Antenna, Revisited (1,350,572 bytes, PDF file)
  QST January 1982, pp. 11-17
  An update on an historical 1922 QST article describing the “definitive” receiving antenna.
  
• The Wave Antenna For 200 Meter Reception (3,061,381 bytes, PDF file)
  QST November 1922, pp. 7-15
  The original article by Mr. Beverage that started a legend.
  

• Is this Ewe for You? (162,191 bytes, PDF file)
  QST February 1995, pp. 31-33
  Feedback QST April 1995, p 75
  Here's a really simple receiving antenna for 80 and 160-meter Dxing.
  
• More EWEs for You (210,262 bytes, PDF file)
  QST January 1996, pp. 32-34
  You've seen the basic EWE, now you can have switchable, directional EWEs!
  

• The K9AY Terminated Loop--A Compact, Directional Receiving Antenna (160,249 bytes, PDF file)
  QST September 1997, pp. 43-46
  Wish you had enough room for an effective low-band receiving antenna? You do! This four-direction system by Gary Breed K9AY fits in a 30-foot circle!
• Comments on The K9AY Terminated Loop (15,634 bytes, PDF file)
  QST April 1998, pp. 77-78
  Technical Correspondence on the Gary Breed K9AY Terminated Loop.
• Hum Problems When Switching The K9AY Loops (36,798 bytes, PDF file) QST May 1998, p. 73
  Technical Correspondence on the Gary Breed K9AY Terminated Loop.

  Note:

   

  Contact information for suppliers mentioned in the above articles should first be confirmed using TIS Address Database Search.

  Bibliography (Members Only)

   

  ARRL Periodicals Index Search - This database contains the QST index from 1915 to the present and the QEX index from 1981 to the present. For QST issues from 1970 to the present, and some selected articles back to 1922 (when construction articles featuring tubes began in earnest), identifying keywords have been added to the technical articles. By entering keywords (ANTENNA) or combinations of keywords (CONSTRUCTION ANTENNA VERTICAL HF) into the Title words: field, you may create dynamic bibliographies.
  Technical article KEYWORD list. Hints for more successful searching

  Suggested keywords for more articles like the ones on this page are: RECEIVE ANTENNA

   

  Article Reprints:

   

  You can get a photocopy of any ARRL published article for $3 ($5 for nonmembers) for each article requested. Contact the ARRL Technical Department (reprints@arrl.org ), 1-860-594-0390) if you wish to get photocopies.

   

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