Tag Archives: ta-33

Hexbeam: A love story.

Posted by on September 16, 2010 No comments

I took off from work yesterday (wed) and ended up playing around with some antennas. I wired up the hexbeam and rebuilt the feed point following Leo Shoemaker’s approach. I also added 17m to now make this a quad bander (20,17,15,10).

Hoisting the antenna up on the 25ft mast was quite a challenge, but it’s up. Unfortunately I misjudged the site where the antenna is located but putting it too close to my 40-80-160m inverted Vee and miscalculated the distance from some tree branches.

I would call it a failure, although I found the signal strength comparison between my previous Mosley TA-33 and Hexbeam to be a night and day difference. The Hexbeam works circles around the TA-33 which surprises me. Initially when I went from the hexbeam to the Mosley I didn’t notice too much of a change, but comparing it now having gotten used to the tribander for the last 6 months, I’m very happy with my decision to return to the unconventional design.

Now, I’m not saying the TA-33 is a bad antenna, but for my location it isn’t optimal. The beam was mounted 8ft above the roof around 25ft above ground. I think an antenna of this design would be optimal around 50ft and away from the house. I had found it to become quite a noise antenna that close to the house.

For this close proximity to ground, the hexbeam seems to be the best option I have available to me. A cubical quad may also be a good option as well.

So Sunday the plan is to relocate the antenna 20ft from it’s current site, which should prove to be quite a job. I’m hardly looking forward to installing new ground anchors.

Hexbeam down, Mosley up

Posted by on March 11, 2010 2 comments

Yesterday, since I ran out of room in a 1 car garage, we finished assembling the Mosley in the backyard. All that’s left is to install the feedpoint and run some frequency sweeps on it. And No, that isn’t a miniature picnic table.

Earlier today I swapped out the Hex-beam with the Mosley TA-33. With the upcoming storms lining up for the new few days, I wanted to get this thing in the air. The receive quality is spectacular and already I’ve worked Greece and Nigeria with 5-8-5-9 reports. The performance is very comparable to the hex-beam with a good deal less noise.

Almost there….

Posted by on February 23, 2010 No comments

We’re just about ready to do an new antenna installation within the next week or so here at N3QO. This project was a chance in opportunity with everything lining up completely unexpectedly. The Yaesu G800SA rotor just arrived today. I’m still waiting on the mast mount bracket for it and the shipment of replacement parts from Mosley for the beam. Weather permitting I’m planning on the installation next weekend.

Soon the homebrew hexbeam and light duty rotor will be available to the highest bidder. I’m also looking forward to the days when the “large” expenses are over to get this station to where I want it. Almost there!