[TowerTalk] Force 12 EF-140 - Need Info from Users ( Current or Previous )

[ersmar at comcast.net]

Kirk et al:

     Thanks for the pix.  I do have one item to add, though.  I have a Bencher Skyhawk Yagi on which I have grounded all the parasitic elements to the boom, to use as a capacitive top hat for my shunt-fed tower on 160M.  The tower works well on 160M as well as on 80M with a half-sloper wire.

     I shorted the Yagi's parasitics to the boom by attaching a small (3/4 X 5 inches) piece of aluminum flashing (from Home Despot) to the center of each element with a #10 self-tapping SS screw through the center insulator.  I connected the other end of the aluminum to the boom with a SS hose clamp that I taped over with Scotch 88 tape.  

     I believe the designer of the Force 12 open-sleeve fed antennas had written on TowerTalk a few years ago that shorting the parasitics to the boom would not impair the functioning of the antenna.  Since the Bencher is a similar open sleeve design, I had assumed the same thing for that Yagi as well, and it seems to work just fine.  

BOTTOM LINE:  One ought to be able to short the outer parasitics of a Bencher to the boom and load it on 40M (or even 30M, or both) with an Omega match as shown on your web page.

73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: K4RO Kirk Pickering <k4ro at darkstar.k4ro.net>
> On Tue, Jan 16, 2007 at 02:21:58PM -0800, N6KI Dennis Vernacchia wrote:
> > Also, is there a better choice currently on the market for a 40 meter 
> > rotatable dipole under $300 ?
> 
> If the end elements (reflector and last director) are 
> grounded to the boom, a large tribander BOOM makes an
> excellent rotatable 40 meter dipole.  Here's how I do it:
> 
> http://www.k4ro.net/tcg/pix/40boom.html
> 
> 73
> 
> -Kirk  K4RO
> _______________________________________________
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