Thanks. As I mentioned, I don't know what setting was used on the TH6
(up 75') at the club station, but whichever it was, I wasn't always in
it. Since the antenna was put up by a club, I would guess it was set
for Lo Phone. I used it mostly in the CW and Lo Phone segments and
yes, it seemed to work fine throughout both. To clarify, by "fine" I
mean it worked the way I had become used to for this antenna, which
was very good or excellent. Regarding baluns - I'll never run more
than a KW with this antenna (no need for it) and much less where the
SWR is high.
As a general comment to the TH6's performance - I judge it based on
the good signal reports and comments from other stations I received,
it's ability to hold a freq in a contest and consistently busting
through pile-ups. I could literally tell stories about it - such as
busting through west coast or EU "walls" to the surprise of the DX
station, being the only NA station heard on 20 meters by a dxpedition
in Myanmar, etc. It never ceased to amaze me. I know there are better
antennas around now, but I don't have room for anything larger than a
TH6 and I'm very happy to have it. I plan to move to a larger property
in a few years and at that point will look at other antennas. Right
now I'm in a race against time to get this antenna up before winter
and there's no time for major changes to the plan.
73, Gerry KA2MGE
-----------------------------------------From: "Richard Karlquist"
To: "Gerry Maira"
Cc: "towertalk@contesting.com"
Sent: Thursday November 7 2024 3:53:06PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] TH6-DXX Band segment settings
I see you dug up one of my old posts. The only thing I would add to
that post is that is that anecdotal reports of using a tuner to extend
the bandwidth of such Yagi's may say "it seemed to work fine" only
indicate that no effective tests were done to measure it. Consider
this: the TH6DXX has 6 or maybe 7 dB gain over a dipole at best. Using
a tuner, the gain will never be less than a dipole. So it will work as
well as a dipole. For casual operation, that may work just fine. It's
only down 1 S unit.
Regarding baluns: The TH6 was designed when hams were limited to 1kW
DC input equivalent to 600W RF out on a good day. Using 1,500 W out
may blow the balun up, especially if you have high VSWR. Recommend you
make a homebrew balun as per K9YC's cookbook. ---
Rick Karlquist
N6RK
On 2024-11-07 10:35, Gerry Maira wrote: I recently bought a TH6-DXX
in excellent condition and I'm getting
ready to put it up at 70'. With the space limitations I have, this
antenna is well suited for me since it can be put up 1/2 at a time -
2
12-foot boom sections instead of the complete 24' boom. Once it's up,
it would be very difficult to make any changes. I plan to use a
Hy-Gain BN-4000B choke but also have a Radio Works Y1-5K or could
make
one from RG-213.
I operate CW mostly and that is where performance is most important
to
me. Phone coverage is important too, though not as much. Looking at
the SWR plots in the manual for the band segment choices (CW, Lo
Phone
and Hi phone) it seems that CW would be the obvious choice for me.
Those curves are steep though, and I wonder if with CW, I would still
have full coverage of 15 and 20 meters, using a tuner and possibly
reduced power for the high ends of those bands. Same goes for 10
meters, say up to 29.2 MHz but a lower freq. could be acceptable
there.
The other choice would be the Lo Phone setting, and using a tuner /
possibly reduced power at the low and high ends of the bands,
including where I spend most of my time on CW.
I couldn't find much info on this topic when searching the TT
archives
but did find the old post below, and I'm a little concerned to say
the
least! Was the antenna actually designed to be used only in one
segment of each band, even with a tuner? Will I be Ok with the CW
setting or would that give me serious problems on phone? If I used
the
Lo Phone setting, would I have problems in the CW portions of the
bands running 750W and a tuner?
I used a TH6 frequently many years ago at a club station, but I don't
know how that one was set. It seemed to work fine on any freq but I
probably never tried it above 29 MHz on 10 meters. I would have been
using a tuner when the SWR was high, but there never seemed to be any
loss in performance - which was always very good. Never had to reduce
power from 800W either. The choke there was just several turns of
RG-213 as described in the manual.
Any advice is appreciated.
Thanks,
Gerry KA2MGE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can see the bad news: choose from CW, low phone, or high phone.
Hope you don't need more than one of those segments :-( Also, you
can't "cheat" the SWR curves by using a tuner. The pattern will
significantly degrade at the frequencies where the SWR is high. This
is why, IMHO, given a choice between a TH6 and TH7, picking the TH7
is
a no brainer. I used to have a TH6. I would never go back to that.
Rick N6RK aschnabolk wrote: >_ Look at Page 2 of 7 in the "TH6DXX"
(last one listed) Curves are there. As_ >_ I_ >_ remember mine when
it
was up, curves were similar._ >_ 73_ >_ Al W2OIB_
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
[1]http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk [2]
Links:
------
[1] http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
[2] http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|