[VHFcontesting] Stacked Squalos?

[Joshua M. Arritt]

A couple folks in the Virginia Tech ham club are considering adding 
omni-directional receive antennas for 6, 2, and possibly 432 (and 222, 
once I get my xverter running) to augment the modest yagi farm used in 
VHF/UHF contest.  I agree that having something omni to switch to during 
search-n-pounce periods could be advantageous on bands where we're using 
boomers now.  I've built a few  2 meter squalos for singleton mobile use 
in the past and they've worked OK... but I would think stacking bays of 
these would be in order for a little more gain in a contest.  It seems 
I've seen posts where folks have mentioned such arrays before on this 
list. 

Any suggestions/war stories/words of wisdom for constructing and using 
such a beast?  Is the stacking theory a little overboard?  How many bays 
do the big guns run?  Is it worth building them for 432 and above (sans 
the dish and horn bands)?  End-fed vs. center-fed?  How about noise 
considerations?   Anyone doing half-wave spacing for the lower angle -- 
experiences?

  Thanks, and CU in the 432 sprint!

   73,
    - Josh, KF4YLM