I recently purchased a Super Antenna YP-3 portable yagi antenna, so of course I'll write about it over the next several months to give it a good review. This yagi is a 3 element antenna that assembles and breaks down quickly to make it suitable for portable field use. For 12 -20 meters, loading coils are used to shorten the elements. It is a full sized 3 element yagi on 6 and 10 meters. It even comes with a tape measure, which you need to set up the antenna for the various bands. The price of the portable YP-3 yagi is $395, which seems a little high at first glance. However, after you see the design engineering and quality that has gone into this antenna I think it's pretty easy to justify the price.
The pictures of the YP-3 yagi on http://www.superantennas.com are OK, but they leave a lot to be desired if you're trying to understand the design, construction, and assembly of the antenna. First, the antenna is truely "portable"; the whole thing fits into a quality 3 foot nylon padded bag that is included with the antenna. Here is a pic of the closed up bag with the antenna inside:
The inside of the bag has elastic pouches to keep all of the loading coils organized and out of harm's way from the rest of the antenna. Pouches store all of the miscellaneous parts. You can see here how everthing fits into the bag:
The boom of the Super Antenna YP-3 yagi is constructed of several 3 foot pieces that telescope into each other, snapping into place with spring loaded buttons. The boom has presets that allow you to set it at either the 11 foot length or the 8 foot length. The 8 foot boom length is only for 6 meters. Here is a pic of how the boom telescopes with the spring loaded buttons:
Here is the boom assembled at it's fullest length:
And here is a close-up that shows the overall length of the boom. You can also see the block where the element screws onto the boom:
All of the telescoping aluminum pieces are very well manufactured without any slop. If you've ever tried to buy various pieces of metal tubing that telescopes, you can quickly appreciate the cost of the materials that goes into an antenna like this.
Here is the stainless steel and aluminum mast clamp. The screw on top allows you to slide the clamp assembly along the boom to where you like it.
More to follow...
The pictures of the YP-3 yagi on http://www.superantennas.com are OK, but they leave a lot to be desired if you're trying to understand the design, construction, and assembly of the antenna. First, the antenna is truely "portable"; the whole thing fits into a quality 3 foot nylon padded bag that is included with the antenna. Here is a pic of the closed up bag with the antenna inside:
The inside of the bag has elastic pouches to keep all of the loading coils organized and out of harm's way from the rest of the antenna. Pouches store all of the miscellaneous parts. You can see here how everthing fits into the bag:
The boom of the Super Antenna YP-3 yagi is constructed of several 3 foot pieces that telescope into each other, snapping into place with spring loaded buttons. The boom has presets that allow you to set it at either the 11 foot length or the 8 foot length. The 8 foot boom length is only for 6 meters. Here is a pic of how the boom telescopes with the spring loaded buttons:
Here is the boom assembled at it's fullest length:
And here is a close-up that shows the overall length of the boom. You can also see the block where the element screws onto the boom:
All of the telescoping aluminum pieces are very well manufactured without any slop. If you've ever tried to buy various pieces of metal tubing that telescopes, you can quickly appreciate the cost of the materials that goes into an antenna like this.
Here is the stainless steel and aluminum mast clamp. The screw on top allows you to slide the clamp assembly along the boom to where you like it.
More to follow...