[VHFcontesting] Fixed antennas and indoor installations

[N6FD]

If you are worried about the cost of the fixed yagis, this would seem an 
ideal situation for a rope yagi.  There was an article a few years back 
about someone who made a 100 element 2M yagi using welding rod and 
rope.  The elements are cut to length and tied onto a couple of ropes 
and then suspended in the desired direction.  Since you don't have to 
worry about weather in the attic, this could be done very simply. 

A quagi feed would probably work well.   I built one out of 1x2 wood and 
12ga copper wire along with some copper welding rod directors that got 
me through my first few VHF contests.  Seemed to work as well as the 
commercial antennas; just didn't last as long out in the weather.

73, Erich, N6FD DM15dp

Les Rayburn wrote:
> On the VHF Contesting Reflector, James Duffey, KK6MC posted some interesting suggestions for an amateur who wanted to try VHF DXing, but was going to be limited to indoor antennas. As you all know, this subject is near and dear to my heart. (ha, ha) 
>
> One suggestion James made was adding fixed long boom Yagi's pointed towards major population centers to supplement shorter antennas that would be mounted on rotors. This fits my own situation to a tee. While I've nearly maxed out the length of antennas that can fit on my rotor stack in the largest void, I have several other pockets in the attic that could support higher gain antennas in fixed directions. 
>
> For this to work, I'd need to work out some sort of switching arrangement, which introduces loss on all the antennas connected...so have to think about that a bit. 
>
> The real issue for me would be deciding where to point the antennas. Contest scores are not my main goal, working new grids especially on 2 Meters and 432 would be. My first thought would be generally Northeast and Southeast, since there are quite a few guys active in North Carolina, and also in Florida. To the west doesn't help me much unless an opening gets into Texas...East should be good with Atlanta in the beamwidth, but there just doesn't seem to be a lot of activity in that direction. 
>
> Any suggestions on how to make this choice? 
>
> 73,
>
> Les Rayburn, N1LF
> EM63nf
>
>
> Les Rayburn, director
> High Noon Film
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