K7LXC's recent comment about yagis vs. 4 square arrays got me thinking. Has someone done a careful comparison of these two antennas for 40 meters? I have relocated and have to build a new station and
A two element 40 meter "shorty forty" at 70 feet and up is a fixture among contesters that can't put up the monsters. Suggest to any one of them that they should replace it with a four-square and see
Don't overlook GAMMA matching the boom of your 20 meter Yagi. At 75 ft or so it is a very good 40 meter antenna. This was first suggested by Ed, W8BEB and has been used successfully by many. Regardin
A near-by DXer (4 element full size 40m yagi at 100 feet) and I (4 sq phased array, elevated radials) have concluded, there are vertical nights and there are horizontal nights. I rate my 4 sq as betw
What about a 3el 1/4 wave vertical yagi? (see ON4UN book for 160 and 80) This would seem to have many of the advantages of both 4SQ and shorty 40. The yagi seems easier to tune and has good gain and
A couple years back I had an M2 2-el 40 on tower #2 at 128 ft and a lazy vee vertical dipole 4 square for 40 meters on tower #1 below a TH-7 which was at 123 ft. In A/B comparisons there was no clear
Just for clarity, what you described is not a 4-square in the ordinary sense. The current maximum in your conductors is many feet off the ground. (How high was the center of the lazy vee dipoles?) A
I still don't think it would be close, at least so far as forward gain is concerned. I have a 4-element lazy-vee parasitic array, and have modeled the array fed as a 4-square. ~6 dBi is the best you
Center of the lazy vees were about 90 ft. Since then 2 more TH-7s were added to the tower with the 4 square dropped lower and the centers only about 30 feet. No major difference in performance.
The equivalence is easier to explain with the centers high. But... The ground reflection gain (or lack of it) normally quoted when analyzing this situation is only really in play to the specified db
This has been a timely thread. As reported previously, I have a 40M 4-square with 240 radials and recently installed a 2-el 40-2CD 40M beam at 50 feet on an AB-577 portable military tower. Testing ov