Hello, just looking for some advice here...there is no way I am going to stretch the wire another 5' 9" approximately...anyone else have this problem? about to go out in the garage and just string some solid core #16 around it for now, this is rediculous lol... I must be missing something or they shorted me wire is all I can figure, any help appriciated
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Maco Y quad reflector wire too short
- Thread starter hairball-NWPA
- Start date
edit: the reflector elements are measured out per instructions 13' 10" on the reflector elements and there would be no way to get 9' 9" between the anchor points of wire
how much wire did you get in inches?
I use to have one of these back when the insulator supports for the reflector were made out of wooden dowel.
If I read the section with the 13' 10" inches each cross element, that is a rough estimate for length. These reflector support elements have a 72" tube in the middle with two 48" inch FG rods in each end of the middle section with maybe 3" inches of the rods inside the metal tubing. Do not set the FG tight inside the metal tubes until you get the reflector square and each of the 4 sides the same length.
These lengths for the supports are just a good starting point. Get your wire all stretched out to 468" inches or 117" inches, well marked to each of the 4 sides and soldered together really good. Then you attach the wire at the marks you made, and adjust the 4 rods to make the wire taught.
So, again don't install the FG rods tight...until you get the reflector with a very slight bow and each side with equal lengths.
I don't like the idea for using short sheet metal screws that hold the 48" inch FG rods in the metal support brackets on the mast. With wind and weather these parts can easily fail. Consider to take the time to slot the metal support tubing about 2" inches and then use some nice SS hose clamps to secure the rods. This also makes getting the reflector square and taught.
Good luck and keep us posted.
I use to have one of these back when the insulator supports for the reflector were made out of wooden dowel.
If I read the section with the 13' 10" inches each cross element, that is a rough estimate for length. These reflector support elements have a 72" tube in the middle with two 48" inch FG rods in each end of the middle section with maybe 3" inches of the rods inside the metal tubing. Do not set the FG tight inside the metal tubes until you get the reflector square and each of the 4 sides the same length.
These lengths for the supports are just a good starting point. Get your wire all stretched out to 468" inches or 117" inches, well marked to each of the 4 sides and soldered together really good. Then you attach the wire at the marks you made, and adjust the 4 rods to make the wire taught.
So, again don't install the FG rods tight...until you get the reflector with a very slight bow and each side with equal lengths.
I don't like the idea for using short sheet metal screws that hold the 48" inch FG rods in the metal support brackets on the mast. With wind and weather these parts can easily fail. Consider to take the time to slot the metal support tubing about 2" inches and then use some nice SS hose clamps to secure the rods. This also makes getting the reflector square and taught.
Good luck and keep us posted.
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they sent the 35 foot wire instead of the 40 foot, I just went and grabbed my spool of 16 solid and took it around the nails connected it togeter that it was tight and solidered it together so i can get this on a mast we just had a snow storm so nothing getting done today. I left a message at maco last night with my info. I bought the antenna through copper. So I imagine the guy packaging the antenna at maco grabbed the wrong length of wire. No biggie now that I understand what is going on
I could see stretching this kind of wire and maybe gain a few inches but you are not gonna stretch it 5 foot lol. When i wrapped it around nails I came up 5' and a few inces short (tape measure, blowing snow) couldnt get real accurate so I imagine just a mistake at factory, I went to string it on spreaders same thing 5' x" too short to make connection
Just stringing the solid wire so I can get a peliminary test, if the wire gives me too much trouble I will order 2 sections of aluminum 1/2" tubing to take the place of FG rods and more less make it a true 4 element if you see what im saying, so moreless it would have true reflector elements...I just bought it bc I had an m103 but didnt like climbing up the ladder and flipping it vert or horiz, figured a switch would work better lol.
On the plus side if i get the wire strung already calculated material costs through the antenna parts, to stretch it to a comet..but right now this will suffice for what im doing, I do well with my v5000 I just wanted dual polarity and directional. I know someone will say you should have kept the 103 but for me my long distance locals are vertical and I talk skip horiz, so I was constantly up n down the ladder, traded it/rotor and a spt 500 for a galaxy 2547 tuned up and chenneled and a dx959 and a palomar 225 so I got roughly what I paid for the 103 and spt500 with the trade value. But I still prefer my ol President madison
On the plus side if i get the wire strung already calculated material costs through the antenna parts, to stretch it to a comet..but right now this will suffice for what im doing, I do well with my v5000 I just wanted dual polarity and directional. I know someone will say you should have kept the 103 but for me my long distance locals are vertical and I talk skip horiz, so I was constantly up n down the ladder, traded it/rotor and a spt 500 for a galaxy 2547 tuned up and chenneled and a dx959 and a palomar 225 so I got roughly what I paid for the 103 and spt500 with the trade value. But I still prefer my ol President madison
there are no sheetmetal scews on the mast, must have been the old style antenna you had. This has boom to mast element clamp just like the driven elements do, the only thing is those maco egg shapped aluminum clamps with the screws and square nuts which I havent had a problem with in these cold Pa winters...I am abut 50 miles south of lake Erie in Pa so we have that lake effect snow machine and the wind gets to whipping at times...I aint scared if the wire breaks heard the complaints and the people needing cheese with their wine about the wire...I dont like plug and play stuff like an a99/I max had em both, Aluminum all the way with a real earth ground not a fake ground 
Well ol Tom Charels called me today while I was at work dragging a maggot wagon to the landfill, and he is sending me the 40' wire, he said the fella that packed the hardware must have grabbed the wrong wire. Very easy person to talk to
its the same either way I do it, the video was a quick one because both of those videos took 45 min to upload each from my phone the difference is hardly noticeable if I recalibrate each set of freqsthis was just a peliminary reading with the measurements of the gammas per instructions now its from 1.1 up to a 1.5 both Horizontal and Vertical polarities from the top to bottom of this ol president madison that is expanded after I moved each gamma, the shorting bars are in position as the instructions say, shorting bar for vertical is 26 inches from the end gamma mount and the Horizontal is 30" from end of gamma and the measurements given for adjusted gamma length(the area that is the capacitor section that trumbones) in the instructions got me pretty close I think I had to move one 3/4" inch and the other 1/2" from what instructions say...2 lengths of rg8u I think they are 62' from 1975 lol it was my dads coax and surprisingly it was still plyable his stuff was taken down in 1979...
NWPA, take these ideas below with a grain of salt, but I would at least check before you raise your beam up high.
You did good, but the band switch on my old President did not produce output power into a good dummy load...that showed even close to the same output power on each band on my inline watt meter. I could have had a bad band switch modification however.
I would suspect lossy feed lines, based on what you showed us earlier in the videos, and now what you tell us you're using...very old feed lines your Daddy used.
If you get a chance I would at least check the feed lines for excessive loss. If you have lossy fed lines it is hard to tell...just using your radio. But, it could be making for less signal at a distance, which also can be hard to tell just using your radio.
Lossy feed lines will not necessarily stop the antenna from working for you, but the feed lines could be heavy with attenuation loss.
If you can tell us what your (less than <2.00:1 SWR bandwidth) shows for both polarities at the best resonance you can find in the three bands you have.
You did good, but the band switch on my old President did not produce output power into a good dummy load...that showed even close to the same output power on each band on my inline watt meter. I could have had a bad band switch modification however.
I would suspect lossy feed lines, based on what you showed us earlier in the videos, and now what you tell us you're using...very old feed lines your Daddy used.
If you get a chance I would at least check the feed lines for excessive loss. If you have lossy fed lines it is hard to tell...just using your radio. But, it could be making for less signal at a distance, which also can be hard to tell just using your radio.
Lossy feed lines will not necessarily stop the antenna from working for you, but the feed lines could be heavy with attenuation loss.
If you can tell us what your (less than <2.00:1 SWR bandwidth) shows for both polarities at the best resonance you can find in the three bands you have.
when i went to the calibration side of my meter, the calibrate did not change at set point so I didnt have to zero it out each push of the switch is what I meant, or should have said. but I have less than a 1.5 from the top to the bottom on both polarities, the cables ohmed out @ 52 ohms, I bought RG8U from dxe a few years ago that my v5000 is fed with bc it had LESS LOSS than 213... I trimmed the old rg8u back 2 inches each end and instaled amphenol pl259s and shrink tubing on pl259s where the outter jacket meets the 259s @ feed points all is well I talk primarily ssb modes my locals are within a few miles and one about 20 miles out with a bunch of terrian between us and he said brought me up 1 1/2 s units compared to my v5000 @ 25ft this y quad on test pole is 10 ft to the boom so I would have to say an improvement and also a big improvement on skip last few days had some conditions and worked stations quite well... cant wait to get it up on the tower but as u saw in the video about 8 inches of snow and tonight 1-16-18 going down to -4 so it will be a bit before it gets rotor'd and tower'd. I posted the vids to youtube because there really wasnt any vids about these antennas or close ups if someone was considering one. my next one might be a shooting star but i need a better footer for my towers. And I havent seen ANY videos of a shooting star. So if any one has one shoot a vid
Just an update...I got it on tower with no more than a 1.3 SWR both polarities,lowest SWR is 1:1 from 28.045-26.815.... locals say I improved my signal, and works great making DX contacts on SSB. Havent had any workable AM conditions since tower mounting yesterday (1/20/18) but imagine it will perform noticeably over my v5000
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