Posts Tagged max gain

In the course of the last month while talking with Jay (N3OW), I’ve been introduced to Hex Beams. I initially was introduced to them a while back after seeing the $500+ kit from DX Engineering, but didn’t think much of it. If it wasn’t a dipole, yagi or vertical it wasn’t of optimal design… Or so I thought.

After reading a number of reviews of the design from various vendors, I decided to venture in building one myself. I went out with a minimal budget and bought 1/16″ plate steel, U-bolts and 12′ crappie poles. This would serve as my $250 prototype. I had found that my implementation of the design was weak and quite fragile in nature, but it did make it up on the roof in one piece with elements for 20 and 15 meter. Also to note, there are 2 styles of Hex beam. The original places the reflector in an opposing M-shape from the W-shaped driven element. In 2007 a ham discovered that the reflector could be reconfigured to form the outer shape of the hex which would ultimately increase front-to-back ratio and make the antenna broadband in nature, giving us a much lower SWR.

I had found this antenna had more front-to-back ratio than the Cushcraft MA5B I had just taken down. At most I had seen 12db f/b on the Cushcraft, and a minimum of 18 on the hex beam. At peak I had found approximately 24db while working a station in Ireland.

My first contact on the hex was Chris (9Y4D) in Trinidad who reported back a 59+10. A signal report I had never seen at 100 watts. I would later work another station in Italy with the same report. I was sold.

It was time to make the design more permanent and it was time for the Cushcraft to be put up for sale. The money for the MA5B completely covered the upgrade costs for the MaxGain Hexbeam spreader kit. This kit is a MUST! Don’t even bother with the crappie poles. They are just that, crappy. I broke 2 of them on the ground just trying to get the spreaders under tension and then trying to get it up on the roof. Spend the $140 and go the right route. You won’t regret it. I also found the original base I had built had warped under the tension of the spreaders. For another $30, I rebuilt the base, way overkill than it needed to be. Regardless, it won’t be a part which will fail.

After 2 hours of rebuilding, restringing and then raising the antenna, I was back on the air with 20-15-10m capabilities, with a very flat and acceptable SWR Sweep.

Below are photos of the build and SWR sweep images.