I have the same antenna you do. XM240 and what I did is put a tuner in
circit that I can switch in and out.
The Alpha 87a will not give me full out put on CW unless I add the tuner in.
The X;M240 is a great antenna and with my 3 ele SteppIR under it all works
fine.
----- Original Message -----
From: "WD0M" <wd0m@centurytel.net>
To: <TOWERTALK@contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 12:17 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] XM240
Ummm....I push a button on my SteppIR and the 40M
element tunes to a 1:1 SWR....oops...sorry - no more SteppIR stuff. ;-)
73,
Joe
WDØM
At 10:10 AM 6/14/2007, Bill Parry wrote:
>I am really tired of the Steppir stuff...let's talk about something else.
>
>I have a 2 element Cushcraft XM240. It has been up for about 5 years at
>about 40 Meters high and has always been a fine antenna. I have had one
>problem with the antenna. I set the point at which I have the lowest SWR at
>about 7.075. I knew that the antenna was fairly broad and I wanted to be
>sure that the SWR was OK in the CW band. I didn't realize the SWR curve was
>not going to be symmetrical and the SWR was going to rise very quickly
>toward the bottom of the band. As a result the 2:1 points are about 7.020
>and 7.285. The antenna still works nicely in the 7.000 - 7020 range but it
>creates problems with my amplifier.
>
>I have always just put up with this, the antenna works well and I am
>certainly capable of retuning the amp. A friend was over the other day and
>suggested putting a 1/4 wave section of 75 ohm coax inline at the shack to
>broadband what the amp sees. I was amazed that I hadn't thought of this
>before. I have a full size 80 sloper from the top of the tower and I did
>this very thing to it. It works fine and the SWR is good across the entire
>band.
>
>So the question is: Are there any drawbacks to using this procedure on a
>yagi? I have lost my notes on the exact frequency that I would chose to cut
>the 1/4 for...(yes I know I need to include in the velocity factor.) I
>assume that I would choose +/- 7.025.
>
>It is definitely not worth the time and expense of taking the antenna down
>to lengthen the driven element a few inches!
>
>Any thoughts?
>
>Bill, W5VX
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