[TowerTalk] Lightning Bolt Quad

[Matt Patterson]

I've owned a 2el lightning bolt quad and one of my friends has one as well. 
I used the single transformer method to feed mine.  My buddy used a remote 
switch and individual feeds.  We lived only a few miles apart and antennas 
were at relatively the same height.  We did many comparisons on which was 
better.  In the end, about the only difference we could agree on was that 
his SWR was a little lower than mine.  Mine was on average 1.5:1 across all 
bands and his was pretty much flat.  I was able to switch bands alot faster 
than he could but other than that everything was pretty much the same.  FWIW 
my quad eventaully got struck by lightning and was completely destroyed.


73 Matt
W5LL
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Lux" <jimlux at earthlink.net>
To: "Jim Rhodes" <k0xu at iowadsl.net>; "denis coolican" <coolican at telus.net>; 
<towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 8:58 AM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Lightning Bolt Quad


> At 04:43 AM 4/20/2006, Jim Rhodes wrote:
>>I asked the Lightning Bolt guy about that once and he got very
>>defensive about his feed system. Said the tuning would be all off and
>>he wouldn't be responsible. Others have said the opposite, that
>>quarter wave lengths to a switch were needed. I am sure there are
>>many opinions on this.
>
>
> This is a question that could be answered by modeling it. (that is, what's
> the sensitivity of the design to this change)  There are some tricks to
> accurately modeling quads (the corners), but I think that Cebik's web 
> pages
> cover it.  You also need to choose segment lengths that line up nicely.
>
>
>
>>At 12:02 AM 4/20/2006, denis coolican wrote:
>> >This four element Lightning Bolt Quad covers 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10
>> >meters. It is fed by a common balum. (one input PL259 and 5 output
>> >pairs of conductors)
>> >
>> >Does anyone know what type of balum this is and what would be the
>> >replacement for it?
>> >
>> >I imagine the driven elements for each band has an impedance of
>> >about 80 to 100 ohms.  The feed into the balum is 50 ohms.
>> >
>> >If a person provides a 2:1 balum for each feed, would the unused
>> >balums be terminated in 50 ohms or left open?
>> >
>> >Any more thoughts on this antenna?
>> >
>> >Denis Ve6aq
>
>
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