[TowerTalk] SteppIR Beams

[Rick Tavan]

Very unscientific observation: I put up a 3 element SteppIR in 
September, 2002 on a northwest-facing ridge at about 2000m in the Sierra 
Nevada mountains of northern California. It is on a 23m tower that I 
crank down to 7m in bad weather. Winter storms include "a lot" of wind, 
snow and ice but I have no exact measurements. The antenna looks and 
performs today just like new. Several times last winter I noticed high 
SWR on cold, wet mornings that corrected itself after some undetermined 
combination of RF power and sunlight. The elements sag noticeably under 
snow load but spring right back when the snow shakes or melts off. I 
leave the controller powered up all the time for superstitious reasons. 
Nonetheless, several times it has lost calibration. It only takes a few 
keystrokes and then a few minutes to run the recalibrate function. The 
deep pattern and near-instant 180 degree reverse feature are worth the 
entire price and effort of the antenna. I particularly enjoy picking off 
Caribbean mults on 20 with the reversed SteppIR while running JAs on 40 
with a Mag 240N on the same mast. I am very happy with the antenna and 
may turn it into a 4 element.

73,

/Rick N6XI

ragnar otterstad wrote:

>I am thinking about buying one of the SetppIR beams.
>My concern is the long term reliability under winter
>conditions.
>
>Has somebody been using one of any length of time
>under heavy winds, ice, snow etc ?
>  
>