This could easily be said for any antenna system. I have seen pictures
where KC1XX was using an extension ladder at the top of a 200 ft tower to
reach the driven element tuning box. Other than the sheer pucker factor,
how much do you think an expert tower climber is going to charge.
The bigger the antenna the more one should expect failures.
I have 3 4 ele SteppIR's and they are pretty darn good. Being a contest I
wanted the 4th element for that extra gain. It is a blast to use on the
WARC bands and not too many people have bigger beams on this band and you
can be very loud with low power.
I have had TH7's fail, baluns on C3's, Cushcraft 40-2CD coil issues.
Yes I have had a failure of the original boots (most likely because I over
tightened the clamps) with my 4 ele in Montana which caused an element half
to experience gravity. The element is in perfect shape after the fall. I
have been lazy with the crappy condx to fix it. This antenna also has an
issue with swr. I believe this might have been caused by operator error
transmitting while the element was in motion. He was a new op to the
station. I now have lock out boxes making this impossible now. This
antenna will most likely come down this summer for an overhaul and upgrade
to the 30/40 driven. It was installed in 2003 so it will be interesting to
see how it has held up. It has survived a number of 80 mph wind events and
is located in a very windy area.
I have nothing but good things to say about the support and service I have
received from SteppIR. I was able to get Jim and Mike to provide me with
some specific dimensions for a project. A task they thought would take a
few minutes modeling ended up being much more difficult but they came
through.
It is easy to make a mistake building these antennas I am sure many of the
problems could be attributed to the user obviously some issues are infant
mortality with chips/motors or in the case where many of the motors failed
the rod holding the spool failed because of a defect in the materials used
to make the rod.
Do most people need the 4 ele. Probably not. The 3 ele has very good
numbers and I probably could have improved other areas of the station with
what I could have saved.
Mike W0MU
CC Packet Cluster W0MU-1
W0MU.NET or 67.40.148.194
"A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may
never get over." Ben Franklin
-----Original Message-----
From: towertalk-bounces@contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of john@kk9a.com
Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2010 9:04 AM
To: TOWERTALK@contesting.com
Cc: noddy1211@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] LP v SteppIR
I am not trying to start rumors, in fact I think that the adjustable element
is a fantastic idea. Perhaps the motors itself did not actually fail in
many cases, but there were other mechanical issues that prevented the
elements from extending and retracting properly. Here are some reviews
addressing the issue: http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/3858 by GM4YSN
KL7GS or IW0CMM. The point of my post was that you should consider if you
want a mechanically complex antenna if it is mounted in a location that is
less accessible for possible repairs. There are other factors to consider
as well since the SteppIR may not work well using long cable runs.
To: "'Tower and HF antenna construction topics.'" <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] LP v SteppIR
From: "Mike" <noddy1211@sbcglobal.net>
Reply-to: "Tower and HF antenna construction topics."
<towertalk@contesting.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:21:13 -0800
I have monitored the Steppir group from the beginning and can't remember one
Stepper Motor failure and personally know six people with Steppir antennas.
Stepper Motors are just about the most reliable motor around, they are used
in the packaging industry 24 hours a day and I have never seen a failure.
Many other parts around these motors may fail but not the Stepper motors.
I think you are starting rumors- :)
Steppir Antennas may have other problems like tape snarl up's or motor
driver chips, but not the Motors.
Mike, K6BR
----- Original Message -----
From: <john@kk9a.com>
To: <TOWERTALK@contesting.com>
Cc: <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 8:30 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] LP v SteppIR
I have heard of a number of motor failures so I wonder how common this
problem is. I suspect only the manufacturer knows this answer. If the
antenna is mounted on a crankup tower repairing it may be somewhat easy,
however if it is mounted 100 to 200 feet high with other antennas on the
tower or in an H-frame like K9LTN's problematic phased array, repairing the
antenna can be a lot of work and expense. It is true that any antenna can
break and in choosing a product one should consider which one is built
stronger and less susceptible to failure, along with comparing the
electrical performance.
To: "Tower and HF antenna construction topics." <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] LP v SteppIR
From: jimlux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Reply-to: "Tower and HF antenna construction topics."
<towertalk@contesting.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:08:03 -0800
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
<snip>
There are complaints of motor/mechanism failures, but they're fairly
infrequent, and, to be fair, you hear complaints about conventional
antennas with broken traps, incorrect hardware, etc. And, because
they're new and novel, the "reporting rate" on SteppIR problems is
higher than for conventional antennas (e.g. you're more likely to find
an online comment about a SteppIR problem than about a missing set of
clamps in some other antenna)
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