I added the trombone to a 3-el SteppIR. It works like it should. However, you might want to consider a little more mechanical support for the trombone element before you put it on the tower. The ends
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One consideration is your tower type. I have a crank-down, fold-over tower with a SteppIR on it. I have had no serious problems with the antenna (after about 3 years), but I have needed to rewrap the
I think I understand the value of a choke made from coax passing several times through a 31 material core. My question is "where should these be located?" in real situations. My antenna configuration
FWIW: I have an inverted-V terminated dipole and a half sloper on the same tower. Tower is a TX-455 with a SteppIR on top. The half sloper is attached to the top of the middle section of the tower. T
Concerning the SteppIR on top of the tower and its effects on the half-sloper and inverted V. I can see very little interaction. The beam elements are not connected to the boom, so any "top hat" effe
Chipmunks got into my conduit (3" PVC) between my shack and my tower and did a job on cable insulation. They shorted several wires in the SteppIR control cable (blowing driver chips in the controller
I have the same tower. Some years ago I bought a "half sloper" that was going for almost nothing on ebay. I think it was the Alpha-Delta version, but my memory is not very good. It covers 40, 80, 160
In the discussion of a quad versus a yagi: there is another factor. I had a Cubex quad (5 band, 2 element) for several years. It performed very well on all bands (with separate feeds via a coax switc
FWIW: I have a UST 55' crank up, tilt over with a 3 element SteppIR on it. I only crank it down for maintenance, so your situation may be different. My standoff arms are in alignment; coax is not att
You will have water in the conduit. I had my sections well glued, the exit points turned downward, etc, etc. A year later I pulled a rag through and it was soaking wet. (Didn't seem to hurt the coax
I assumed the water in my conduit was from condensation. It could probably be prevented by a perfect pneumatic seal on each end, but this is not trivial to do. Changing air pressure and the different
Immediately, before spending any money, dig up one or two of your radials at points about 3m from the tower base. Are they still intact? Badly rusted? There must be ten thousand different types of st
The odds are strong that any antenna will require some maintenance at some point. The OP did not say whether he has a "crank over" tower. A crank down, crank over tower with an antenna mounted just a
Off-center fed antennas are like half slopers. They work well in some cases and work poorly in other cases, and it is difficult to predict which result you might have until you try it. It might be fa
A quick real story -- Long ago and far away (Southeast Asia) we installed a small computer system. It had a problem. At fairly regular intervals (about every 15-20 seconds, IIRC) it would often take
My suggestion: If you are in a small community, go talk with the planning board. Many planning boards have a "workshop session" that is separate from the formal meeting. Before going, obtain an accur
Schedule 40 is more than enough. Please really, really think about the 2" size. I did this initially and needed to dig it up and replace it with 3" or 4" later. No matter how well you plan things, yo
I forgot this: Be certain the ends of the conduit are well blocked somehow, and inspect the blocking now and then. Critters can be clever and get into the conduit. I had chipmonks in mine. They ate t
I am not growing younger, unfortunately, I am beginning to think of downsizing. I have a perfectly good TX-455, with the raising feature, and an expensive mast. (And also a HAM-IV rotator.) What is a