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maco 5-element to a 7
- Thread starter 552fl
- Start date
Back in the day, HY-GAIN Antennas were made this way. Here's the assembly manual for the HY-GAIN "LONG JOHN" 5-element beam. Use their spacing and element length to get the best swr 26 - 28 mhz. 73s
- 399
All my elements are attached to the boom. Interesting...looks like mine's a little flatter. But we aren't comparing apples to apples..but the idea is the same.
sorry had to go bigger,,my 7-element came today from r&l putting together tomorrow, sold the maco 5-element already
The longer boom will have some additional gain, though possibly not as much as you may expect.
You will have a tighter, more narrow pattern. This will give you the impression of even greater gain.
Now what you will most likely experience is, stations you heard off the sides with the shorter 5 element will most likely fall off the ends of the Earth.
So the group that you "roundtable" with is going to falter. Stations you heard off the corners and sides will diminish considerably. You'll have more rotor usage, as you try to find the "sweet" spot between stations you could split between before and hear both or several before.
This will most likely disappear.
The beam if in a Vertical configuration, will turn into a "BRICK" wall off the sides.
So more rotor usage to find stations others are hearing, that are now blocked by the new pattern.
I also found with a long boom 6 element from a short boom 5, is the stations 90-100 miles out are almost gone unless your pointed damn near directly on them.
The long distance range(500-1000+ miles) when band is open with a Horizontal configuration, that "Brick wall" will diminish a little. However the rotor usage still increases dramatically from before. I have actually missed stations, I could work before on the short 5 that I can't find on the long boom 6.
This is due to trying to find them with the tighter pattern, the difference in receive angle and by the time you find what you believe is the correct heading, the path has changed or gone.
Well good luck
All the Best
Gary
PS: Due to what I have experienced as above, when my second tower goes up hopefully before summer is done. The 5 element short boom will be placed on it, at a different height of 10-15ft higher than the long boom to regain some of what was lost with the longer boom. This should help also when the receive angle changes on the longer paths.
You will have a tighter, more narrow pattern. This will give you the impression of even greater gain.
Now what you will most likely experience is, stations you heard off the sides with the shorter 5 element will most likely fall off the ends of the Earth.
So the group that you "roundtable" with is going to falter. Stations you heard off the corners and sides will diminish considerably. You'll have more rotor usage, as you try to find the "sweet" spot between stations you could split between before and hear both or several before.
This will most likely disappear.
The beam if in a Vertical configuration, will turn into a "BRICK" wall off the sides.
So more rotor usage to find stations others are hearing, that are now blocked by the new pattern.
I also found with a long boom 6 element from a short boom 5, is the stations 90-100 miles out are almost gone unless your pointed damn near directly on them.
The long distance range(500-1000+ miles) when band is open with a Horizontal configuration, that "Brick wall" will diminish a little. However the rotor usage still increases dramatically from before. I have actually missed stations, I could work before on the short 5 that I can't find on the long boom 6.
This is due to trying to find them with the tighter pattern, the difference in receive angle and by the time you find what you believe is the correct heading, the path has changed or gone.
Well good luck
All the Best
Gary
PS: Due to what I have experienced as above, when my second tower goes up hopefully before summer is done. The 5 element short boom will be placed on it, at a different height of 10-15ft higher than the long boom to regain some of what was lost with the longer boom. This should help also when the receive angle changes on the longer paths.
Good info Gary. One thing I have noted over my few decades in radio is that the more someone expects to see a big difference the more likely they are to think the difference is greater than it really is. One thing that causes this is exactly what you said regarding front/back and front/side rejection versus forward gain. While the forward gain may only increase 1 or 2 dB the rear rejection may increase by another 6 dB giving the impression the antenna actually has 7 or 8 dB gain over the previous antenna.
Some other observations CK: The stations in the "Ground Wave" pattern(I know wrong term! Old habits die hard!
)
This is the pattern of 150-350 mile range out. The Signal Fade with the longer boom, is much steeper than before.The shorter 5 element had multiple Receive / Transmit angles and the "Fade" did not appear to be as drastic.
The longer boom has less of this "Fade" in the 700-1000+ mile pattern, though than did the short boom 5.
However the stations in that middle range 350-500 miles out the 5 element short boom was most certainly BETTER, on receive and transmit. WHY? Don't know!
Just a general observation and experience from my location.
So just some impressions having run the long boom 6 "L" now for almost a year vs. the short boom 5 "L" which was up for about 3 years before.
One more note: The short "5" was about 5-7 feet higher on the tower, than the Long 6.
This was due to increasing thickness and size of the mast to hold the bigger antenna.
This saved me from having to pay about $200-300 more for same length mast as before.
The "Wind Load" on the longer "6" is almost twice what the other antenna was. (14 ft. boom vs. 25 ft. boom) I keep waiting for that 10 year old rotor to fail!
This should most certainly be a thought of consideration, when someone makes that drastic of a change!
All the Best
Gary
)This is the pattern of 150-350 mile range out. The Signal Fade with the longer boom, is much steeper than before.The shorter 5 element had multiple Receive / Transmit angles and the "Fade" did not appear to be as drastic.
The longer boom has less of this "Fade" in the 700-1000+ mile pattern, though than did the short boom 5.
However the stations in that middle range 350-500 miles out the 5 element short boom was most certainly BETTER, on receive and transmit. WHY? Don't know!
Just a general observation and experience from my location.
So just some impressions having run the long boom 6 "L" now for almost a year vs. the short boom 5 "L" which was up for about 3 years before.
One more note: The short "5" was about 5-7 feet higher on the tower, than the Long 6.
This was due to increasing thickness and size of the mast to hold the bigger antenna.
This saved me from having to pay about $200-300 more for same length mast as before.
The "Wind Load" on the longer "6" is almost twice what the other antenna was. (14 ft. boom vs. 25 ft. boom) I keep waiting for that 10 year old rotor to fail!
This should most certainly be a thought of consideration, when someone makes that drastic of a change!
All the Best
Gary
love my 7-element don't have the ears the 5 did on the sides but front and back is booming..louder than the 4-element on the flat side..552 in florida
A beam I’m toying with now is Maco’s 5 Element HV it great having a dual polarity 5 element beam it’s just a dual polarized 5 element yagi without the Quad reflector. When I can afford a bigger rotator I’m gonna move up to the 8 element HV.