[VHFcontesting] Yagiphobia

John Geiger af5cc at fidmail.com
Mon Sep 16 13:12:52 EDT 2013


The recent discussion about VHF contest activity has got me wondering about
a different phenomenon which we experience in my area, one I can describe
as "Yagiphobia".  Being that my background is in psychology, I spend way
too much time studying and trying to understand behavior.  This is one that
has my stumped.

Almost every neighborhood in my town has no CCRs.  You can put up pretty
much antenna antenna you want as long as the tower doesn't go about 35 feet
or so, and you can even get waivers for that rule.  However, when hams in
my area get into VHF weak signal work, very few of them want to use a beam
or yagi.  It seems that everyone is entranced with the horizontal loop for
VHF/UHF, and so they put those up.  Not hearing much activity, they pretty
quickly give up and conclude that no one is on the VHF bands.

Now I don't understand this obsession with the loop.  Yagis for 2m and
above are very small, cheap, and can be turned with a TV rotor.  They don't
require large towers, lots of guying larger rotors, and stuff that HF
antennas can require.  They offer a huge performance advantage over a
non-gain loop antenna.  Even a 3 element beam for 2m can be had new for
less than $60, which is probably less than what a new loop costs, and will
greatly outperform it.  TV rotors can be found very inexpensively today.  I
recently bought 2 used ones for $20 each.  Both work fine, although 1
required a paint job, which was free since I had some old paint in the
garage.

If you do much looking you can usually find used 2m or 70 beams for less
than $50 each.


Does anyone else experience Yagiphobia in there area, and what is the
driving force behind it?  How do you get hams out of its mindset?  I can
understand it on HF, but VHF, I just don't get it.

73 John AF5CC


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