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Maco M103C


it's good, the 104C is marginally better, and the Signal Engineering quads are probably even better.
 
if its a 103 hv you can as it will have both verticle and horizontal elements, a 103c is flat though. its up to you to chose to put it verticle or horizontal. the only way to make it switch polarity like that is to physically change it so the elements face up down or left right.
 
this is a 103 hv, notice there are 2 sets of elements. a verticle set and a horizontal set. you can chose between the 2 on this style antenna.
m103hv.gif


this is a 103 c notice there is only 1 set of elements. you decide when you put it up if you want the antenna verticaly polarized by having the elements up and down or or horizontally polarized by having the elements flat.
m103c.gif
 
any yagi beam antenna will focus your emissions with most of your signal going twords the major lobe (front) and the remaining part of your signal being radiated 180 degrees away (back) with none being transmitted to either side. this focusing helps keep go farther. it is what they consider a power multiplication factor. its like you ar eputting out more power because our signal is focused. you are noty actually adding any addition power but the antenna works like it does. when my buddy rick put up a 104c verticle 65 feet up we tested it vs is imax 2000 omni, switching between the 2 antennas showed a 3 s-unit signal from the imax vs a 7 s-unit for the 4 element beam.

if you are talking in town an omni antenna is a better choise. it does not reject signals from the sides and rear unlike a beam will. if you like aways away from town or most of your signals will be coming from 1 direction a beam is a good idea.

there is no advantage to having a beam verticle or horizontal, what i mean is they work equelly well both ways. the main difference is this. if you are wanting a beam to talk to your friends that are mobile or have base antennas that are verticle than you should install your beam in the verticle position.
if you are wanted to get a beam for a shooting skip than you will want to mount is horizontal as most skippers with beams are mounted this way.

there is a large signal loss when the transmitters signal is horizontal and the recivers is verticle (or vice versa) that is why you need to decide what your main focus will be.

the big advantage with the hv series beams is that you can switch between verticle or horizontal, so when you are rag chewing with your buddys you can run it verticle, but when you want to call cq you can hit the antenna switch and make the antenna horizontal.

the disadvantage to a beam is that you need to buy a rotator to spin it if you do not want to go do it by hand every time. they are only really effective at recieving signals from 1 dirrection. where ever you antenna is points is the people your going to hear. this is whay many people will use an omni directional antenna as well. the transmit in all dirrections ok and recieve from all directions great.
 
Vertical will work just fine for skip, it's just that horizontal is more common for Yagi antennas. You will have no problem talking to horizontaly polarized antennas with a vertical as long as they are hundreds of miles away or more. It's when you are both local that there is a huge loss between the two polarities.
 
For DX'ing the polarisation does not really matter because the polarity changes all time as the signal travels through space.Usually when it arrives at your receiver it is neither V or H but rather something in between.The advantage of a dual polarity antenna is that as the signal shifts in polarity you can switch the antenna to maximize the signal.I used to run a Wilson Shooting Star many years ago and loved that feature.For local work it was always verticle except when someone was being an a-hole and trying to jam us and then those of with "flatside" would shift polarity and keep on with the conversation without changing freq.You will see hams mount their antennas horizontal,not because of DX'ing but rather because it is easier to stack antennas that way and also because of the length of the elements extending so far down the tower.
 
Back in the 70's I had a yagi (built for ten meters by local ham )that I got almost a 2 to 1 swr on by playing with the gamma match. This thing had two rotors so as to not only be able to turn north to south but also turn from horz. to vert. I found that by turning to 45 degrees the antenna could hear the distant stations better. Not sure of the measurements any more but it was six elements the boom being about 27 feet long and the elements were about 18 feet . 9 feet on each side of boom. Forgot to turn flat one night and got up to find antenna on the house. Still got the thing laying on the roof of an old out building. Sure could pull in those stations from up there in cold country.
 
I have the m103c and I like it . It has really good front to back, gain, and good rejection. I have it mounted on the horizonial because I shoot dx with it mostly. It holds up to the wind and tuned really easy.
 

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