[TowerTalk] OWA Yagis was 40m 4el KLM - replacing linear loading with coils

[Steve Maki]

The boom length has more to do with gain than element count.

I'm guessing if you had OWA's you would be sold on them.

Especially if:

1) Your amp(s) are not solid state broadband types.
2) You have stacked monobanders.

The flat SWR curves give you easy to achieve no-amp-retune wide 
frequency moves and stack combos. You go - yep, this is the way it was 
meant to be.

-Steve K8LX

On 04/30/20 19:15 PM, sawyered at earthlink.net wrote:

> In my view, the discussion on OWA yagis is about the element count and the
> boom length.  People will describe that they have a 5 el or 6 el yagi.
> However, an OWA yagi has 2 elements that are really closely coupled driven
> elements and not contributing to gain.  Vs a conventional yagi where all
> elements except the single driven element contribute to gain.  So a 6el OWA
> yago does not have the same gain as a 6el conventional yagi on the same
> boom.  Sure you can add boom length to the OWA but you can also add boom
> length to the conventional yagi and the OWA will always lose in gain.
> 
> I am not bashing OWAs.  They are an excellent compromise of wide band low
> SWR vs gain but it is a compromise.
> 
>   
> 
> The other side of the coin is the radio's capability to deal with a higher
> SWR and the losses created in the coax due to the SWR being higher in
> portions of the band.
> 
>   
> 
> I have all conventional yagis.  The 2:1 bandwidth of the my yagis are 28000
> - 28750.  2100 - 21375.  14000 - 14300.  7000 - 7185.  The amp is at full
> power up to 3L1 SWR.  And I have most of my runs using LDF5-50.  So in my
> opinion, for a given boom length, the trade of the OWA isn't worth the gain
> loss outside the 2:1 edges of the band.  Especially because I am almost
> never running in those sections of the band - where gain is most important.
> 
>   
> 
> Like everything, there is no free lunch in engineering trade-offs.