VQuad great Beam a full wave delta loop design if you want some more performance Maco now makes a 3 element version of the VQuad the VQ3
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Anyone ever use stacked V-quads? what would be the benefits
- Thread starter G GOLLY WAlly
- Start date
Thanks radioeddz.
Here is a link that shows some details, but I don't find the Manual as yet.
http://www.macoantennas.net/NewProducts.html
Here is a link that shows some details, but I don't find the Manual as yet.
http://www.macoantennas.net/NewProducts.html
I have a V-quad, and I can't complain about it I think it's a decent little beam, made a lot of contacts on SSB with it. I was thinking sometime in the future of buying another and running stacked V-quads. Might not be a big time setup, but it would look big time. My wife has already started grumbaling about it, so I know her thoughts about it.Just wondering what y'all think?
In the 70's I had a single set of the Original Wilson V-Quads & I Hated them.No matter how they were mounted my Starduster & Super Scanner kicked their butt.I took them down & gave them to a friend who stacked them & he was disgusted with them as well & after a couple of months took them down & destroyed them.For me they would rank up there as the WORST Base CB Antenna I have Ever owned or used.
SIX-SHOOTER.
You were not doing something right. Probably the phasing was wrong. that is NOT as simple as people think. Simply cutting a length of coax and thinking things are right is the WRONG way to approach it.
It was all Factory purchased.We followed the instructions down to the T.SWR was great but they SUCKED badly.I knew several others who had the same results from the antenna & quickly removed them as well.Many went with a 3 element yagi & had far better results as did those who went with the Y-Quad & PDL II.
SIX-SHOOTER
It wouldn't be the first time factory directions were wrong. Cushcraft has the stacking distances on their 2m 13B2 yagis over a foot too close for maximum gain. Truthfully a single three element yagi should have beaten a Starduster and performed very slightly better over the Superscanner. A dual stack should have been noticeably better than either. As for the PDL2 I agree. That was a great performer in a small package.
The V-Quads were HOT until people put them up & they grew ICE COLD & went away as quickly as they went up.I was Pissed since I was a kid & I paid for my own stuff.I was blessed with having some adult friends who were pretty darned radio & antenna smart.I ended up building a 4 element beam on a 20 ft boom that looked like a Moonraker & it kicked Butt & took names.I built it from the ARRL Antenna Handbook around 1976 I'd say.It was the best CB antenna I have ever owned with ease.
SIX-SHOOTER
Back in the late 70's and 80's i ran a set of stacked V quads and they did a great job. They were popular up in my area with several sets put up around here. They were pretty comprable to a Moonrsker 4 performance wise. Pretty good performance for the price back then.
Sorry I didn't chime in, I missed the thread.
So the question asked is what is the benefit?
Basically it's all about "Angle of Arrival", the angle of signals coming into your antenna and going out of it and DX. The ARRL undertook a major project in 1993 to tabulate the arrival angles for signals between major areas of the globe using a computer prediction programme called IONCAP. Many thousands of predictions were run for all levels of solar activity, for all months of the year, and for all hours of the day, and the results were presented statistically as the probability that a particular AoA would be experienced. In the images below Steve G3TXQ converted the ARRL data into a series of charts based on the UK(London) as the receiving site. The charts show the arrival angle along the horizontal axis, and the probability of it occurring on the vertical axis.
The full ARRL data set is available on the CD which comes with the Antenna Book.
Consideration 1:
So what you have is that at different distances, and therefore parts of the globe, the angles are different. Nearer DX will come in at a higher angle than more distant DX.
Here are the charts for the UK for various parts of the world. As you can see, the further away you get, the lower the angle the signals are coming in at. For CB concentrate on the 10m band as it's basically the same as 11m.
(Courtesy of G3TXQ, sadly SK)
Consideration 2: We know from antenna modelling of a beam as you increase the height of the antenna the take off angle lowers. Once you get to around a wavelength long the gain curve gets dips in it at certain angles. When you get to two wavelengths long it gets multiple dips.
(Courtesy of G3TXQ, SK)
The problem:
So the problem you have is if you put up an antenna 2 wavelengths high to get the most distance you've got -15dB gain for signals coming in from a few hundred miles away. I've experienced this myself where I've had a yagi up at 60ft and not been able to hear anything at all on 10m below 1200 miles despite it being the peak of the solar cycle at the time. So if you're in the USA and you wanted to hear DX from the States you'd have trouble. So you put the antenna lower so you can hear DX from the US but then you lose the stuff several thousand miles away.
The solution:
Stacked antennas. By stacking antennas you get the advantages of the gains at the various take off angles you want so you can hear the nearby stuff on one half a wavelength high when the one 2 wavelengths high can't and the one two wavelengths high can still get all that lovely DX from the other side of the world which the one half a wavelength high can't hear.
There's an Australian, Ian VK3MO, who is very prominent on 20m band. He runs a tower with four stacked 20m quads. Each antenna can be used on its own or all antennas can be run together. He can hear a gnat fart on the other side of the planet no matter how bad the conditions. I first talked to him at the bottom of the last solar cycle using 10W and a home made 20m dipole put up as an inverted V with the top just 16ft high.
So the question asked is what is the benefit?
Basically it's all about "Angle of Arrival", the angle of signals coming into your antenna and going out of it and DX. The ARRL undertook a major project in 1993 to tabulate the arrival angles for signals between major areas of the globe using a computer prediction programme called IONCAP. Many thousands of predictions were run for all levels of solar activity, for all months of the year, and for all hours of the day, and the results were presented statistically as the probability that a particular AoA would be experienced. In the images below Steve G3TXQ converted the ARRL data into a series of charts based on the UK(London) as the receiving site. The charts show the arrival angle along the horizontal axis, and the probability of it occurring on the vertical axis.
The full ARRL data set is available on the CD which comes with the Antenna Book.
Consideration 1:
So what you have is that at different distances, and therefore parts of the globe, the angles are different. Nearer DX will come in at a higher angle than more distant DX.
Here are the charts for the UK for various parts of the world. As you can see, the further away you get, the lower the angle the signals are coming in at. For CB concentrate on the 10m band as it's basically the same as 11m.
(Courtesy of G3TXQ, sadly SK)
Consideration 2: We know from antenna modelling of a beam as you increase the height of the antenna the take off angle lowers. Once you get to around a wavelength long the gain curve gets dips in it at certain angles. When you get to two wavelengths long it gets multiple dips.
(Courtesy of G3TXQ, SK)
The problem:
So the problem you have is if you put up an antenna 2 wavelengths high to get the most distance you've got -15dB gain for signals coming in from a few hundred miles away. I've experienced this myself where I've had a yagi up at 60ft and not been able to hear anything at all on 10m below 1200 miles despite it being the peak of the solar cycle at the time. So if you're in the USA and you wanted to hear DX from the States you'd have trouble. So you put the antenna lower so you can hear DX from the US but then you lose the stuff several thousand miles away.
The solution:
Stacked antennas. By stacking antennas you get the advantages of the gains at the various take off angles you want so you can hear the nearby stuff on one half a wavelength high when the one 2 wavelengths high can't and the one two wavelengths high can still get all that lovely DX from the other side of the world which the one half a wavelength high can't hear.
There's an Australian, Ian VK3MO, who is very prominent on 20m band. He runs a tower with four stacked 20m quads. Each antenna can be used on its own or all antennas can be run together. He can hear a gnat fart on the other side of the planet no matter how bad the conditions. I first talked to him at the bottom of the last solar cycle using 10W and a home made 20m dipole put up as an inverted V with the top just 16ft high.