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My Lightning 6 Quad antenna
- Thread starter Drifter
- Start date
Have not measured elements yet but remember this is cut for 10 meters so we need to do a little calculation to compare. The Flexible stub wires are 147.5" ?? which differs from Harvey's 128", the brass stubs are the same at 18".
You could be right Dennis, but nobody ever mentioned to me that the antenna dimensions were cut for 10 meters.
At the bottom of your page #10 it shows the expected band width curve and it covers the CB band and not 10 meters. Did you ask Lightning Antennas about that discrepancy in their manual?
If you add Harvey's 128 inches and the 18" you're very close to your overall length. I figured the difference between Harvey and Elliott was due to the fact that one was possibly for L6+ and the other was for the L4+, and I never asked either.
I would also check with LA's about stretching the wires and if you need to stretch both the short wire and the long wire for the driven element.
It seems to me I missed asking some good questions back in the day.
LA told me the center freq is 28.400 with .5MHz BW. The Ref and De wires have a tag with them that states 10 meters. I assume there manual is generic but I'll see what they measure. They will cut any ctr freq you want but is extra for other than 10 or 11 meters.
The 147.5" is just the flexible wire, does not include the 18" brass. That coupled with the smaller 10m element is probably going to leave a much greater range of adjustment, I will see if there is room between the mast and element for that.
They claim the wires are pre-stretched.
Also, George told me on the phone that it doesn't matter if the coax swi grounds the unused port or leaves it open. Does that sound correct? The remote swi I am going to use grounds the unused port. The instructions say to have both coax attached to the swi.
I didn't realize this beam was available for both 10 and 11 meters.
I see their Website indicates wire sets are available for both bands. None of the numbers I posted are useful in your case.
If they say they prestretched the wires then I would follow their instructions. Harvey noted in the email I posted for you that he stretched his wires a little just to get the wires straight. I added the part that stretching the wires could help prevent the problem due to wind, and maybe help maintain the tune.
According to my quad model at 27.205 MHz if I go to 28.4 and rescale the model there will be a little less than 5" inches shorter wire length to maintain resonance.
I did a search on e-ham looking for post on the SE or LA L4+ beam but found nothing.
Good luck and keep us posted.
I see their Website indicates wire sets are available for both bands. None of the numbers I posted are useful in your case.
If they say they prestretched the wires then I would follow their instructions. Harvey noted in the email I posted for you that he stretched his wires a little just to get the wires straight. I added the part that stretching the wires could help prevent the problem due to wind, and maybe help maintain the tune.
According to my quad model at 27.205 MHz if I go to 28.4 and rescale the model there will be a little less than 5" inches shorter wire length to maintain resonance.
I did a search on e-ham looking for post on the SE or LA L4+ beam but found nothing.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Dennis now that you have an official manual and before you get everything in the kit all scatter out and unpacked, have you figured out yet...how you're planning your install on your tower?
Do you have a tilt-over crank-up tower?
Do you have a tilt-over crank-up tower?
I think it makes good since to stretch these a bit as Harvey did otherwise I bit it will soon be out of tune.
Thanks for modeling at 28.4 now I know about what the lengths should be.
I think I'm going to post an eham review when I get done.
I think George has made a lot of changes with the drawings and also improved materials. I'm supprises they we don't hear more about their antennas. He sells on ebay and there is an individual that has one on there about to end I think. He also has a facebook page.
I have high hopes.
Well see how it all works out.
No tilt over, wish it was.
My plan is to drop the hazer down to the middle set of guys at 50 ft. Then I'm going to take up 4x4' sections of military aluminum mast and also a support cable and make a crane arm. I've tested this at ground level and it holds my 180 lbs easy. Then I can use the crane arm to pull up the mast extension and attach it to the top of the main mast. Then I will assemble and tune the L4 on a temporary mast on the ground that I can raise to about 12' for tuning and hopefully I can fish the quad up past the other antennas with someone on the ground to help guide it. It's going to be tricky.
After seeing your model with and without balun I ordered two 5kw rated baluns from Balun Designs and I'm hoping to find room to mount them right at the feed points. I have made 2 1/2 wl coax that I can attach to a remote switch and I ordered a short, open, 50 ohm calabration kit so I can normalize the analyzer reading to match the end of the single feed line from shack to the switch. I can tune the antenna from the input of the remote switch. Hopefully this will keep the vertical and horizontal feeds balanced.
That is the plan. We will see how well I can implement it.
My wires measure.
Ref 431"
De 417"
1sr dir 403"
2nd dir 402"
None stretched more than an inch or so. If I compare to a couple of quad calculators none agree exactly. This doesn't seem to match your estimate of 5" variance from the 11 meter version. This is such an odd duck I guess I have to trust their specs.
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Thanks for posting the manual Dennis , I guess I gave a lighting 6 but it is a Signal Engineering older, boom the same ,elements the same , matching system not the same .
Murray
How is it different, can u post a photo? Just wandering what the changed.