[TowerTalk] ALTERNATIVE TRIBANDER or the Ideal TriBander...

K2EK@aol.com K2EK at aol.com
Mon Nov 28 21:04:16 EST 2005


A lot comes down to your primary objectives.  The ori9ginal question harked 
back to tri band contest performance.  Somehow WARC got shuffled into the mix.  
and on and on.

Lets face facts...  you are not going to WIN a contest (I mean WIN the thing 
number 1 single op..) with a tribander. Maybe state, maybe section, bit... 
there are just too many good ops with real antenna farms to consider WINNING the 
whole shebang.  

Do you mean having FUN?  Hey, I just finished CQWW and earlier this year, 
ARRL CW DX using nothing more than a hunk of wire (30 feet more or less) out an 
apartment window.  To be clear on the matter, I placed 4th USA QRP in ARRL.   
Did I have fun in both events? You bet I did. Is having fun your real 
objective?  

That aside, I discovered long ago, tribanders really didnt cut it if you 
wanted to WIN.  Moving into mono banders, I then discovered, you could do well, 
but needed even more to WIN.  That launched my mono band comptetition phase when 
I found with multiple mono band yagis I could actually WIN DX contests (and 
set USA single band records). 

Back to the original question.  My favorite tribander is the Mosley CL33.  A 
little short for a real 20 and a little long on 10.  But it is hard to beat 
its performance on 20, 15 and 10 for the price.  And it is by far the most 
rugged antenna I;ve ever used.  It lasted 15 years as a tribander.  It was reborn 
as a 15 or 20 meter "south" antenna 15 years later contributing to those 
earlier mentioned single nad WINS.  40 years later and I expect to still use the 
remains in various configurations.

Good luck with what ever you do.  Simply match your requirements with 
realistic expectaions.  

de Bill
K2EK


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