[TowerTalk] Stacked KT34XA's vs The Competition?

[Barry]

While good performers, KT34XAs  can be a bit of a mechanical 
nightmare and maintenance headache compared with, for example, TH7s.
73,
Barry W2UP


On 22 Mar 2006 at 16:33, Brad Pioveson W9FX wrote:

> Greetings, TT'ians.  In a conversation held yesterday with a friend
> who's an avid contest op, the subject of stacked tri-banders came up. 
> My friend commented that he has a stack of three KT34XA's on a tower,
> one each at 120', 80' and, 40', all connected using a StackMatch
> device and fed with low-loss line.  He mentioned that he's never been
> impressed with the performance of the stack vs his 5 ele monoband
> yagis for 20 and 15 located on an adjacent tower at 120' and 100',
> respectively.  "Only very rarely," he said, "will the stack - with the
> antennas taken singly or in any combination - display an advantage
> whatsoever when I compare signals with the 5 ele, long boom, homebrew,
> monoband yagis for 14 and 21 MHz.  The monobanders will, in nearly
> every case, outperform the stack."
> 
> That got me to thinking...  I don't recall seeing KT34XA's mentioned
> often in contest station writeups as the tri-bander-of-choice for
> stacking.  Are my recollections accurate, and, if so, why is that?  I
> do remember having heard, worked, and or read about other brands of
> antennas being used...but, not KT34's.  Is there a reason...does the
> KT34XA design and pattern (patterns, considering all three bands) not
> lend itself well to a stacked setup?  Or, should this stack work
> better than described?  I realize I haven't given any hard performance
> data, only the comments of the guy that built the array, uses it
> regularly, and is puzzled as to why it doesn't 'work' better than it
> does.
> 
> If my friend's stack of KT34XA's is not performing as well as, say, an
> equivalent stack of TH6's, F12's, it also strikes me that now - during
> the solar cycle lull - would seem to be an excellent time to start on
> a long range plan to swap out the antennas with those that will make
> better use of his 120' support, Ring rotors, and associated hardware.
> 
> Thoughts, anyone?
> 
> 73, Brad, W9FX
> 
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--
Barry Kutner, W2UP              Internet: w2up at mindspring.com
Newtown, PA                     Frankford Radio Club