New beam

Posted on November 28, 2011 by jeff

A month ago during the 2011 CQ Worldwide Phone contest I lost my roof-top hexbeam to wind. Areas around me would not only suffer damage from the wind but also record snowfalls. I got off lucky, altough my hexbeam did not. Also to note, this was a homebrew antenna and not one commercially made. The hex is an excellent design and definately gets the job done, so no complaints here.

With that out of the way, I was on a search for some aluminum and recently encountered a Hy-Gain Explorer 14 (EXP-14) that was in the attic of a local ham. I knew nothing of this Hy-Gain model, but the specs seemed to be right in line of what I was looking to accomplish. The price was right and it was in excellent condition. In speaking with the seller, the beam used to belong to a local club who unfortunately lost access to put up towers for field day and this beam was one of the casualties.

The Hy-Gain EXP-14 has a unique feed point (as they even state in the manual) with parasitic driven elements on 10m. It weighs approximately 45lbs, 14ft boom with a 17ft turning radius, perfect for my rooftop mount.

I had to beam built, tuned and installed in what seemed to be record time, only taking 3 1/2 hours. Part of that time included running out to Home Depot for a 12″ mast (above the rotor) and prepping the coax with ring terminals.

Once the beam was up, I could hear a drastic difference compared to my temporary bob-tail curtain on 20m. The first stations I heard were from India and Oman. Keep in mind, all of this was going on during the CQ Worldwide CW contest that I unfortunately could not commit a serious amount of time in due to the holiday, but ended up being a good time to test the new antenna and tweak the station.

The antenna is only sitting about 25ft off the ground, 6ft from rooftop. I was concerned with takeoff angle with the antenna being so close to the ground, but the fact that I was able to work into the Middle East, India and Asiatic Russia all while barefoot, says something.

In the photo, it may look like the antenna is mounted to the chimney, which it is not. The mount is a modified non-penetrating roof mount for DirecTV-type satellite dishes with 8 low-profile concrete blocks acting as ballast. The lower mast is guyed to the plate that holds the blocks. The mast is then guyed to the 4 corners of the house and attached just below the rotor.

Dec 13

Final Hexbeam update

Posted on December 13, 2010 by jeff

Back in September as read in the previous post, the Hexbeam went back up, although we had to relocate it. I had Dave (K3GMT), Lyle (KB3SXI) and Jay (N3OW) come out to help move the mast and guy points so we could actually rotate the Hexbeam. After a bit of testing, I had found that transmitting above 14Mhz caused a number of RF issues to occur in the house (eg. resetting TV’s, causing computer keyboards to lock up, etc.). This was due to the antenna being too low and the house being in the radiation pattern.

The idea was to scrap the satellite station project and move the Hexbeam to the roof a few weeks after the initial move. With some help from Harry (K3HVC), we were able to relocate the Hexbeam and retune it a bit. We also made room below the Hex for the home for a future 6m beam. Wiring is already complete, so installation should be cake when that day arrives.

Signal reports have been phenomenal. A week or 2 after the installation there was a 10m opening which I was easily able to work South Africa, barefoot without issue. 10-15+ signal reports working barefoot were welcomed.

Overall, I’ve been very happy with the decision to go back to the Hex. For my particular installation, it seems to be the best choice.

Aug 10

N3QO – Back on the air!

Posted on August 10, 2009 by jeff

Spent most of the day getting the MA5B back up on the roof since the move from Allentown to Pottstown. I was graced with hearing EK6TA out of Armenia, my furthest I’ve heard yet. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to work him, but it was nice to know the antenna was at least picking it up. In addition an Italian and Irish station were also propogating to me around 5-6PM. You’ll see the ground wire on the outside station ground bus, this has since been changed out to zero gauge copper. I initially needed some form of ground for the polyphasers to discharge any built up static.

The wire routing will also need to change to separate the beam mount and inside station ground from the transmission and rotor control lines. Although so far I haven’t found any RF hot spots anywhere inside. But then again, at most I’m outputting 100 watts.
[simage=153,512,n,center,]