[CQ-Contest] Vee Beams

[sawyered at earthlink.net]

Duncan,  I have used a number of vee beams, both terminated and unterminated.  Usually fed with open wire line.  Personally, I would not suggest using them for contesting unless you live in an area like Asia or the South Pacific where there might be a fairly narrow beam heading path to the contest multitudes.  For EU, I don't think that he would be happy.  The beamwidth for really good gain (ie 3 - 5 wavelength legs) is just too narrow.  You WILL BE LOUD but only to some people.  Unless of course you can set up a 6 - 10 points of the compass vee beam array, which is one whale of an undertaking.

I would suggest wire yagiis in a couple of strategic directions.  Long (effective) boom length wire yagiis will give excellent gain with much broader beam width and are cheap to put up.  

Also, take a look at the points of the compass to US, Asia, Pacific, and Africa.  Possibly a long wire will work which would have 2 lobes rather than one like the vee beam.  

Ed  N1UR