Many articles have been written about the use of the Beverage antenna for
reception of relatively low-frequency signals at great distances. A quick
search of the internet will reveal web pages
where such articles have been collected.
One of the most interesting papers, and one of the hardest to locate,
is an FCC report called "Memorandum on the Beverage
Wave Antenna for Reception of Frequencies in the 550 - 1500 Kilocycle Band", FCC
Report 9.2.1, by Benjamin Wolf and Adolph Andersen, dated April 1, 1958. This report
came out in the days when the Conelrad system was being developed — long before the
Emergency Broadcast System — and right in the middle of the Cold War. Under this
plan, regional stations in smaller cities had to monitor clear-channel stations in
major cities for the latest information, in case of a surprise attack on this
country. Thus the need for this type of directional low-noise antenna.
The authors of this memorandum describe "some of the practical problems experienced in the
erection and operation of this type of antenna ... at the [FCC] Central Monitoring Station
at Grand Island, Nebraska." It is interesting to note that it was only 35 years
earlier that the first description of this type of antenna was given by Beverage, Rice
and Kellogg.
Anyone attempting to build and use a Beverage antenna should also study many of
the more recent magazine articles, books and web pages, before construction
begins. Links to some of those articles appear
on this page.
Note: This memorandum has been carefully transcribed into HTML format
and is available 
