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My personal preference is Quad. I had a Hy-Gain "Long John" 5 element Yagi which was a beast to turn, required a hefty rotor, and limited me to only one polarity. After it blew down in an ice storm
I put a Quad up in it's place. I enjoyed having the option to use Horizontal or Vertical, using a lighter rotor, and the gain (and rejection) was very good.
I would like to build one when I get some more time. I probably already have the stuff to do it too. My ex father-in-law needs a base station setup. This would be perfect.
Many downloadable calculators here for yagi, quagi, and quads....and many more.
https://www.ve3sqb.com/
https://www.ve3sqb.com/
you should not need a match, I had a 3 element, no match problem, it's just a dipole at the feed.
With a beam, be sure and get it up high, I had one at 30 feet, it did not perform well, went to a 2 full wave loop array, at 36 feet to the feed, working very well, I had no way to get the beam higher, I suspect they need 52 or more feet for cb to get the best out of them.
Dipole yes but that does not necessarily mean it does not need to be matched. The presence of other element alters the feed point impedance. A large multi-element array may have a feed point impedance of only 10-15 ohms at resonance.
Yes I understand that. I had no problem at all with the one I built, it was a spider beam, 2 directors, a driven and a reflector, it had good swr, just trimmed the driven, as in tuning a dipole, I had good swr. I do run 75 ohm coax from antenna to the shack swr meter, then 50 ohm from meter to radio. All my antenna get wired in this way.
I’m about 45 feet at the feed point. This is the second yagi I put together. The first I built was a vertical 3 element made from copper tubing pictured in my emoji. I used a gamma match to match it. It worked well but was very heavy. So I built a new house and wanted something light weight. Boom is 1” square tubing welded to the correct length. And the elements are standard steel whips. Maybe the steel whips have less effect on the impedance.
This's my next antenna which I'm gonna strap together around next year.
https://www.lightningantennas.com/l8-quad
https://www.lightningantennas.com/l8-quad
Most Quads require a lot more maintenance than a Yagi.I have known many who swore by & at their Quads because they worked great but needed so much attention.Quads don't hold up as well where there is winter icing.I have seen Yagi antennas have large sags in them when covered with heavy ice but they return to normal when the ice melts.Quads on the other hand fall apart from the excess weight on the wires.It is an easy choice for me since I have no icing issues here in Florida & another plus with a Yagi is that if mounted horizontal you can put a lot of them on one tower where a Quad takes up much more physical space.I have (4) Beam antennas up now & all are Yagis but I do have a Cubex Quad for 2 meters that will be going up as well pretty soon I hope but it is very small at only 8 elements so it won't be an issue.
SIX-SHOOTER
SIX-SHOOTER
And 314 lives in Indiana, I think!... Yes, it will be a monster talker. Though be hard to tell the difference between a good well built 4 element CUBEX and that albatross.
With Indiana weather, be lucky to last a year around here!
IMHO
Gary
With Indiana weather, be lucky to last a year around here!
IMHO
Gary
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...runna pile-up on 6m SSB