[TowerTalk] 4-square questions

Grant Saviers grants2 at pacbell.net
Mon Mar 6 12:40:15 EST 2017


Re 4sq receive vs yagi - which to listen to on 80 and 40.

For my site, it depends a bit on the yagi, heights, and arrival angles.  
My 4sq receive, 70' per side, DX Eng, rarely beats the F/S of a 2L 80m 
at 156' or the F/S & F/B of the 3L 40m at 140'.  The 4sq usually beats 
an 86' rotatable 80m dipole at 100'.  The RDF numbers suggest this as well.

OTOH, a 40m 2L Moxon at 102' is more often (25%?) bettered by the 4sq.

On 160 it is no contest 4sq vs T vertical, 4 sq to the rescue. With very 
high angle noise my 4sq generally does less well although overall it is 
a great antenna, RDF seems as advertised.

As Jim(s) note, the best strategy is often to null the noise rather than 
aiming azimuth for maximum gain.

Grant KZ1W

On 3/6/2017 9:16 AM, Jim Thomson wrote:
> Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2017 07:43:32 -0800
> From: jimlux <jimlux at earthlink.net>
> To: towertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 4-square questions
>
> To my mind, the big advantage of directional antennas on HF is not so
> much forward gain, but the fact that they have nulls that can be steered
> to block undesired signals.
>
> You can have fairly big phasing errors and the forward gain doesn't
> change much (tenths of a dB), but a phasing error can kill the null
> depth. I suspect that this is why some people swear by 4-squares and
> others swear at them.
>
>
> ## If the 4 sq is used on TX only, any nulls is sorta a moot point.
> On a yagi, even with lousy FB or FS,  at least they will have a good null
> off each side.  Usually you dont hear of folks with 80m or 40m yagis,
> who also use a dedicated  RX ant.
>
> Jim   VE7RF
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