Assisted by David H, the beverage took shape, and was finally finished ready for trial on night number two. We were putting the antenna up in the dark, to prevent any local kids wondering what we were up to.

Results quickly showed that there were stronger signals coming from the new antenna through the open field, as perhaps one would expect. But that was not the whole story.

My initial trials were with 590 VOCM, a common NFLD station. I noticed the new antenna had much more splatter here. In fact this seemed to be the worst example to use, because the splatter came from semi local BBC Radio Scotland on 585kHz. But there were other examples.

Initially, I had managed to null a Czech station on 639, with a volume control/ pot at the far end of the line. Then one day I noticed there was a bend in the middle of the antenna where it runs through a clump of trees, making it impossible to see all the way along the line. I straightened the wire, and the null was never the same again!! Maybe I should have left it, or maybe it was simply a slightly different direction the antenna was running. Who knows. One thing for sure is that the antenna worked. This in fact was the first time I had seen a perfect null with a beverage and volume control.

I was able to make immediate A-B comparisons. The new antenna in the open field had a much better performance on the hf end of MW. Much better.

Not that the old antenna was useless. It is not everyone that has the opportunity to use a 500m antenna at home. Of course, with all that wire up on sticks, I was going to have some success anyway. But I was not prepared for the superb DX this season brought.