[Towertalk] Antenna Advice

[Jim Shaw]

I know that some people may react to this suggestion in a very emotional
way, but if it were me, I'd post your question to the following reflector as
well

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SteppIR/

What have you got to loose?  And you may well learn some very valuable
information given the amount of money you are likely to spend no matter what
your ultimate decision.  Some of those folks are reporting severe winter
weather as well.

73 de Jim WA6PX
JGShaw@Alumni.HAAS.org

-----Original Message-----
From: towertalk-admin@contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-admin@contesting.com]On Behalf Of Peter Chamalian
Sent: Saturday, December 21, 2002 11:36 AM
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: [Towertalk] Antenna Advice


The ice storm of late November has given me the opportunity to replace
all my antennas (translated, mother nature smashed all of them).  I had
been using a Cushcraft 402 and a Tennadyne T-10 at 100 and 90 feet
respectively.  They worked OK.  Then the ice storm hit with the
following results:

Tennadyne did not stand up to the 2-inch ice and wind I had.  The boom
has a permanent bend and all elements are bent. As someone mentioned
here, the aluminum cracks.  I had the rear-most elements break the boom
on this one.  The Cushcraft 40 is in 4 pieces, the boom broke in half
and each element broke in half.  Clearly the antenna can't stand the
riggor of 2 inch ice and 30 mph wind at 1000 feet asl.

Now that the tower is being replaced (45G for the new one) along with
the antennas, I'm doing some modeling on the tower height, but am in a
real quandary about the antennas, so I'm seeking some help from this
group.

I want the ability to work all the bands including WARC, 40-10 (I can
live without 30 meters).
I have 1 tower to work with.
I can't rotate the tower because I have packet link antennas mounted on
it in fixed directions.

I'm considering the M-Squared 2 element 40 but am not totally committed
to that.  The 20-10 (30-10) Meter antenna is a puzzle.

After looking at what's available, it seems to come down to Tennadyne
T-12, M-Squared 30-10LPA, Sommer XP80.

OR

3 beams, one for 40, one for the traditional 20-10 and one for the WARC
bands.

Your comments/experience appreciated.

Thanks!


Pete, W1RM



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