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cubical quad max height
- Thread starter shoemaker
- Start date
i have always kept mine at 36' to the center of the boom with quads. when i used a yagi i would try to get them up about 72'. the reason i went to the quad is due to the fact you get great performance at the first wave length 36'. and my 6 element quad is out performing any 6 element yagi i ever had. i use a white lightning 4 plus stretched out to a 6 element. started with it at 4 elements.
There is no max height as far as performance goes. There is however a max height as far as practicallity goes. The higher the better.The same is true for any antenna.
Thanks guys i run a Lightning Bolt 4 element quad @ 36 ft. I want to put it up higher, was concern about height putting the quad performance at a disadvantage. Thanks for the comments............73's.
The only time going higher has negative returns is when the added length of coax cable has more loss than what you gain by going higher.It is important on VHF and UHF but not really a factor on 11m.
Yes; No; maybe; sometimes. All these answers are TRUE!
Who are you trying to talk to? Changing the height of your antenna changes your take off angle. What works at 40' may not work at 35'. 72' may be too high. If 35' works and 40' doesn't, then 40' is too high also!
If you are talking "skip", what works today may not work tomorrow due to the ever changing height of the ionosphere's reflective layer.
If you are talking to LOCALS, then the higher the better!
If you only get ONE fixed height, anything between 18' and 36' is a winner. I'd choose 36' first!
Who are you trying to talk to? Changing the height of your antenna changes your take off angle. What works at 40' may not work at 35'. 72' may be too high. If 35' works and 40' doesn't, then 40' is too high also!
If you are talking "skip", what works today may not work tomorrow due to the ever changing height of the ionosphere's reflective layer.
If you are talking to LOCALS, then the higher the better!
If you only get ONE fixed height, anything between 18' and 36' is a winner. I'd choose 36' first!
For local chat the higher the better. For skip then there are just too many factors regarding take off angle and distance to even think about trying to account for.You can never satisfy all requirements so therefore in general the higher the better. If you have stacked arrays and can switch between the one at 36 feet and the other one at 75 feet then you may see a differance sometimes and the lower one may be better but unless you are a big time ham contest station with a huge antenna farm just go as high as you can safely make it.
When it comes to skip, you can be TOO HIGH, so I wouldn't buy into "the higher the better" argument. You would be surprised how many people talk good skip between a 1/2 wave and a full wave (18' - 36') from the ground!
DXman
Yes, that's 3100 degrees F. Nine yrs of hard work.
Master Chief said:
Master Chief & QRN have good points here.
For myself, which I run a straight horizontal Yagi, I am @ 36' to the boom and @ 10' above sea level. I run just a mobile radio doing 28 watts on SSB and have very little problem talking outside N. America on SSB.
From what I have found through searching a Yagi on horizontal is; the best Take Off Angle starts at 36' (11 meters). But this does not mean that 36' will be the best, say, talking into India or Pakistan. But then it might be just fine for reaching to the Western Pacific rim.
Now for the Vertical, I would say "higher" the better, but here again, your terrain can become a factor also.
Master Chief once said: if you really want to work good DX, then get a crack-up tower.
Think of it like this. Since propagation is almost always changing, and since there is never a 'perfect' antenna in relation to all the varying conditions, and since take-off angles can change with the height above ground, and ya-da ya-da ya-da, having the most height you can ~reasonably~ get for your antenna isn't a bad idea at all. I would love to have every antenna I have at 200 feet! But I know that is just never going to happen for a number of reasons. The least of those reasons is I certainly don't plan to run feed lines that high, and I @#$ sure ain't gonna climb it if someone were generous enough to give the thing to me! Besides, where I live, where would I put it?
The minimum height for almost every antenna you can think of is high enough so that you normally can't 'clothes-line' your self with it, and just a little bit more, sort of. It won't work 'perfectly' every time in that position, but nothing does anyway, so what's the difference. A 1/4, 1/2, or full wave length are nice goals to aim for but certainly not 'THE' answers.
- 'Doc
The minimum height for almost every antenna you can think of is high enough so that you normally can't 'clothes-line' your self with it, and just a little bit more, sort of. It won't work 'perfectly' every time in that position, but nothing does anyway, so what's the difference. A 1/4, 1/2, or full wave length are nice goals to aim for but certainly not 'THE' answers.
- 'Doc
Master Chief said:
Again,maybe yes and maybe no. That is why I said there are just too many variables involved.Talking "good skip" as you call it certainly is possible at the heights you stated but for really great dx to the antipodes you WILL find that high antennas outperform lower ones.Face it,we are talking CB here,not amateur radio where you may have a 200 foot tower loaded with stacked monobanders.For that one station you could not work because your antenna was too high,there are a hundred that you could not work if your antenna was lower. For a single monobander on CB go for height.It will be the better choice for about 99% of the time.
Hello again, I know that the cubical quad has low angle of radiation and it wil perform at a low height. Should't it perform better heigher than 1 wavelenght?