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Re: [TowerTalk] 6 mtr quad

To: Martin Sole <hs0zed@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 6 mtr quad
From: Rudy Bakalov via TowerTalk <towertalk@contesting.com>
Reply-to: Rudy Bakalov <r_bakalov@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 08:09:19 -0400
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
It is worth taking a look at the Swiss quad described in the Rothammel Antenna 
Book, which as far as I can tell was never for sale in English. The Swiss quad 
takes the idea of the HB9CV yagi and applies it to a quad to achieve over 30 db 
F/B with a lambda/8 boom.  I have personally used a few of the HB9CV yagis and 
was amazed by their F/B.

The German version of the Rothammel book is available for free online.

Rudy N2WQ

Sent using a tiny keyboard.  Please excuse brevity, typos, or inappropriate 
autocorrect.


> On Sep 1, 2016, at 3:23 AM, Martin Sole <hs0zed@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I've long been a quad aficionado and have generally devoured any information 
> I can find on them. The double driven W6PU quad is an example of something a 
> little different that suggests it can still be a useful antenna. I still have 
> a lightning bolt quad along with lots of extra parts and hope to shortly 
> rework it as a 3 element with 30 and 40 added to the other 5 bands together 
> with moving the10 and 12m elements to improve on their compromise positions. 
> We'll see.
> 
> But in all of this the information by Cebik probably stands out as the most 
> thorough examination of the quad and it's comparison with the yagi array. My 
> take away from his work is whilst the quad might well demonstrate some gain 
> advantages in some situations it suffers from 2 seemingly intractable issues. 
> Firstly the gain, F:B and SWR responses are somewhat more "peaky" than the 
> equivalent yagi curves. Secondly that these responses are less well aligned. 
> That great 30dB F:B at the CW end of the band matches to an unfortunate 6 dB 
> drop in peak gain whilst up in the SSB end of the band the extra bit of gain 
> is matched to a meagre F:B.
> 
> I do think that the closed loop antenna tends to be lower noise, there seems 
> to be a lot of anecdotal information that makes this hard to ignore and my 
> own experience points to much the same. In SE Asia we do get lots of heavy 
> monsoon rain and there seems little doubt the quad works better at those 
> times.
> 
> I definitely would agree that like the newer dynamic antennas the quad really 
> needs either a telescopic tower or one with a fast and convenient raising 
> fixture. The frailty of both these antenna types on a fixed 80 foot plus 
> tower is never going to be ideal.
> 
> Martin, HS0ZED
> 
> 
> 
>> On 31/08/2016 20:44, Joe Giacobello, K2XX via TowerTalk wrote:
>> Ed, I have been using quads since the late 70s.  My first one was a Skylane 
>> tri-bander, which used low strength, flimsy spreaders compared to what's 
>> available today.  I've also had a couple of six band quads with four 
>> elements on 10-20M and seven on 6M with a 24 foot boom.  They do indeed work 
>> well and, when multibanded, are far less of a compromise than multiband 
>> Yagis.  A 2 element quad has only about 0.3 dB less gain than a three 
>> element monoband Yagi.  Going to multielement quads beyond three elements is 
>> an exercise in rapidly diminishing returns.  The gain increase is relatively 
>> small given the increase in expense, complexity and vulnerability.  Four 
>> element Yagis and beyond are then a better investment.
>> 
>> I am currently using a two element duobander on 30 and 40M on a 20 foot 
>> boom.  It's almost equivalent to a three element monoband Yagi but on a far 
>> shorter boom.  Cubex's 26 foot spreaders have held up well at this windy 
>> QTH, although the combination of ice and wind can be destructive.
>> 
>> 73, Joe
>> K2XX
>> 
>>> Ed Sawyer <mailto:sawyered@earthlink.net>
>>> Wednesday, August 31, 2016 9:16 AM
>>> The Quad vs Yagi debate is timeless. I always thought there were a number
>>> of things contributing to it:
>>> 
>>> - Back in the day before computer optimized gain yagis, the quad
>>> was a simpler way to get more gain on a given boom. The full loop started
>>> it off with something like 1.3dB gain over the dipole element and placing
>>> evenly spaced elements gave good results for a 2 or 3 el quad.
>>> 
>>> - The average height of a quad (I have to believe) is the center
>>> point between the top wire and the bottom wire (or diamond tips) so the HFTA
>>> analysis should be the same for a yagi vs a quad at a given height when
>>> horizontal polarization is used.
>>> 
>>> - However for the early years, low "towers" of 30 ft or so, if they
>>> were fed for vertical polarization and happen to be in a good to excellent
>>> ground conductivity area, the take off angle was likely better for long
>>> "band opening" DX and impressed their owners.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Today, there is much better ability to get maximum gain out of a longer boom
>>> yagi that is way easier to install and maintain and we understand the take
>>> off angles much better.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I could be wrong on the above folklore, but that's my guess.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Ed N1UR
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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