Bill, W4AN is right..the KT34XA is a pain in the butt. But when it works its
great. Mine was beat up by Opal in Oct 1995. The reflector has flipped
over and is now upside down. 15 meters has high SWR. 20 meters requires
the tuner and it keeps changing tuning. I have replaced caps twice since
1981 when I got it...and I have a crank up so I can bring it down to roof
level to work on it. Altho cranking it down is a chore.
I would suspect the problem with the TH7 would be the traps.
Now someone at Hy-Gain passed the word that the TH11 has improved
performance on 10 and 20 over the TH7. Is this selling hype or truth?
I run across a few who swear by the Sommer XP807. KM1E wrote a nice article
in the Dx magazine about selecting one antenna for 20 to 10 including the
WARC bands. I ran into him comparing the Sommer to the nice 4el that KA1PE
uses on 17. Compared nicely on short skip and FK8CP said they were the same
at his QTH except KM1E faded a bit more.
I think any of the above and perhaps the big Fritzels are all very close. I
would say don't spend too much time comparing...get one and get on the air.
An advocate of "GAD"...Go and do it!
Dave K4JRB
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/towertalkfaq.html
Submissions: towertalk@contesting.com
Administrative requests: towertalk-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: owner-towertalk@contesting.com
Search: http://www.contesting.com/km9p/search.htm
|