I have the 3 element version of HyGain's shorty forty. I has been up for at
least 10 years and I have never taken it down. It has worked flawlessly all
that time. Right now, I should take it down because one of the boom bolts
has lost its nut and is backing out. The truss wires will hold the boom
together so I am not really worried about it.
What I can't figure out is why this antenna is not extremely popular. I
don't know anybody else who has one or even has the current two element
version of it.
Of course, it is somewhat narrowbanded like all shorty forties so that
should not be a serious drawback. Could it be that earlier HyGain 40 meter
beams (402BA) earned a terrible reputation for blowing driven element
insulators and this reputation is affecting the popularity of the
Discoverer? In case you don't know it, HyGain fixed that problem years ago
in the Discoverer with a new driven element design and I have had no
problems like that at all, even with my pair of 4-1000As running in high gear.
The only thing I have done to "customize" it is to change the standard
HyGain truss wire to 3/16" wire rope and install better turnbuckles for
adjusting it.
Oh yes, I feed it with 75 ohm CATV hardline and use the 50/75 ohms matching
stubs described in the NCJ years ago. They form a part of the coiled
coaxial "choke" balun. If you are going to run high power, don't use foam
coax for the matching stubs or for the flexible link from the hardline to
the antenna. I use RG8 and RG11, non-foam. I do not use matching stubs at
the transmitter end because the pi net of my final matches 75 ohms (or 50
ohms) very well.
So you might consider the Discoverer along with the others. I don't think
you will be sorry.
Stan w7ni@teleport.com
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