At one point I had a 4-el Skylane quad and 8/8 Telrex yagis (15M) and was
able to compare them. The major advantage I noticed with the quad was in
high noise times. The quad seemed much quieter. Running Europe using
the 8/8 I suddenly heard the noise pickup for some reason. Couldn't copy
any stations. Switched to the quad and could continue to run the weak
stations calling.
I also found the quad to be quite unwieldy mechanically, a real challenge
to install without breaking it. I started with the Skylane 40-10 quad, 2
elements on 40 interlaced with 4 elements on the other bands. Quite a
monster. Concluded life would be a lot easier with the 2-el 40 on its
own boom, so I did separate the two antennas and that helped a lot. Even
then, the 40M quad was eventually destroyed when the wires hung up in a
"nearby" tree. I had cleared trees around it for what I thought was a
comfortable radius, not considering seriously enough the fact that the
quad extended above its boom, tree limbs extend outward from their trunk,
and they move greatly in the wind -- anyway, despite a large radius
around the 40M quad support (which was a "topped" tree, by the way), in a
wind storm the quad wires/arms got hopelessly tangled up in neighboring
trees.
73 - Rich Boyd, KE3Q
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/towertalkfaq.html
Submissions: towertalk@contesting.com
Administrative requests: towertalk-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: K7LXC@contesting.com
Sponsored by Akorn Access, Inc & KM9P
|