[TowerTalk] Cut off extra 7 ft of mast or leave it?

Jim Brown jim at audiosystemsgroup.com
Mon Nov 23 00:22:03 EST 2020


On 11/22/2020 8:38 PM, Gary K9GS wrote:
> I'd have to study this a bit more but why not put a 3 ele 6m beam at the top and stack with the DB11 on 6m

Stacking dissimilar antennas is not a great idea, and while SteppIR 
yagis do work on 6M, dedicated 6M antennas work a lot better. If you're 
going put something better for 6M, buy the longest Innovantenna that you 
can rotate, and if it's one of the longer ones, you'll need to put it 
below the SteppIR, because the longer ones have a wire truss to support 
the ends of the boom.

I'm speaking from experience -- I used my 3-el SteppIR with the added 
fixed director to make it 4-el for more than ten years. Early this year, 
replaced it with an M2 7-el, then mid-summer with a 7-el Innovantenna. 
The M2 works, but the Innovantenna works better (tighter pattern to 
reject noise), and is MUCH heavier (built like brick outhouse). Both are 
about 30 ft, both use a wire truss.

73, Jim K9YC


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