[CQ-Contest] W6AM Pictures

[Brian Miller]

Hi Yuri and others

We have a rhombic at the ZL6QH station, with 200m long legs elevated at about
20m above ground level. It is switchable between the short and long paths to
Northern Europe. Although the rhombic performs quite well, we have found that it
is generally not as effective as our yagi and long wire vee beams in contest
situations.

Rhombics exhibit high gain but the main lobe is very narrow. Our experience
suggests that antennas with more lobes and broader beams in the azimuth and
elevation planes are more useful for winning contests. I note that most
commercial rhombics were designed for point-to-point linking circuits, not
general coverage requirements

You can find more information about the ZL6QH station and antenna farm at
www.zl6qh.com.

73

Brian ZL1AZE
for Quartz Hill Management Committee


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <k3bu at optonline.net>
To: <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Cc: "Jim Neiger" <n6tj at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 2:30 PM
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] W6AM Pictures


Sorry for messy post, switching to new email and browser,
here it is again cleaned up:

Jim, N6TJ writes:
> So, pretty much from early 1973 to Don's passing in June 1985, I operated
> many contests from W6AM, and spent literally 100's of hours there -
> working on the station and listening to him and the history of ham radio.
> Don was truly one of the pioneers (I think he got his first "license" in
1912).
> During the last couple decades of the W6AM rhombic ranch, it was 'only' 9
> rhombics and 18 directions on 24 acres, 1234 ft above the Los Angeles Basin,
> right on the edge of the Pacific.  During its heyday, Don's property was 120
> acres with 13 rhombics and 26 directions.

Thanks Jim!

Very interesting and W6AM was certainly an icon and unique "hamonized"
commercial installation of rhombics.

Would you care and remember to share some anecdotes about Rhombics performance
vs. regular mortal's antenna installations?

I had Rhombic one summer, running FTDX400, and Kermadec expedition kept telling
me that I was only NA station that they were hearing when the band was "dead" to
NA.

I believe Rhombics are performing quite a bit better than what modeling software
would indicate (calculated gain vs. real life performance).

Tesla RC has acquired 175 salty - marshy acre Rhombic farm on NJ coast and we
are looking forward to resurect it, any advice and experiences are greatly
appreciated.

73 Yuri Blanarovich, K3BU
Tesla RC, N2EE, NT1E




Yuri Blanarovich, K3BU
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