tilting a yagi?

[Happy_Hamer]

I hate to sound like the "put it up and talk crowd" ,,,,,,,

I had a friend that was new into radio but was old into being stubborn.

He lived on 30 acres and was able to get 6 different wire antennas up very high.

He could have put up a yagi on a tower, he said there was no need because he had wires in different orientation that did just as good as a yagi :headbang

I owned a SuperAntenna YP-3, sold to Moleculo.

The friend bought a galvanized 40 foot push up pole one day to mount an imax 2000 above the trees.

We decided to temporarily mount the YP-3 on the push up for comparison to the wires.

The yagi was pointed north on 20 meter SSB and his collection of wires is on an antenna switch so switching to different antennas was no problem.

On the YP-3 we were talking to Russia consistently all night with 100 watts.

Not one of his wire antennas could even hear the Russian station!!!!!

Simply putting a yagi up following install directions will get you more of the world on your logbook. Don't worry about the few degree of tilt.

By the way, my friend later bought a tri band Mosely and installed it on a 60 foot tower.

Have fun

 

[HiDef]

Was your friend feeding the wire antennas with coax?

I hate to sound like the "put it up and talk crowd" ,,,,,,,

I had a friend that was new into radio but was old into being stubborn.

He lived on 30 acres and was able to get 6 different wire antennas up very high.

He could have put up a yagi on a tower, he said there was no need because he had wires in different orientation that did just as good as a yagi :headbang

I owned a SuperAntenna YP-3, sold to Moleculo.

The friend bought a galvanized 40 foot push up pole one day to mount an imax 2000 above the trees.

We decided to temporarily mount the YP-3 on the push up for comparison to the wires.

The yagi was pointed north on 20 meter SSB and his collection of wires is on an antenna switch so switching to different antennas was no problem.

On the YP-3 we were talking to Russia consistently all night with 100 watts.

Not one of his wire antennas could even hear the Russian station!!!!!

Simply putting a yagi up following install directions will get you more of the world on your logbook. Don't worry about the few degree of tilt.

By the way, my friend later bought a tri band Mosely and installed it on a 60 foot tower.

Have fun

 

[Happy_Hamer]

Only the G5RV was fed with coax, the others were 450 ohm ladder line

Was your friend feeding the wire antennas with coax?

 

[Happy_Hamer]

ooops and the 160 meter loop was fed with coax

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

You need a lot of wire to perform as good as even a modest yagi. I had a 600+ foot longwire many years ago and it was aimed pretty much towards the north-northwest at Japan. On 20m it worked great with a theoretical gain of about 7-8 dBi which is pretty much the same as a Cushcraft A3 tribander. It was of course mounted much lower so it would never perform quite as good but believe me it did work good on 20m into Japan. I would never want a bunch of wires instead of a good yagi but with enough real estate you can get a BIG signal from a wire antenna however they are a bitch to rotate.

 

[wavrider]

I had an all band 160 meter doublet fed with ladder line.

It was at 65' top feed point.

On 20 meters it would outperform my tribander installed above the doublet but only in the direction of the wire. SE-NW, it would scream into the Islands and into NW of the continent, sucked going into EU or S Africa.

Wires will work, as CK mentioned but the amount of real estate and predicting which way the lobes will shoot of the wire can be alot of fun, or headache depending on how you look at it.

It all comes down to how you want to operate, what are your expectations, and what you want to achieve.

Yagi at height hands down best imo, Vertical at height less expensive and they do work, not as well as a yagi though.

Wires are fun to play with on upper HF freq, phased arrays, curtains, bobtails etc.etc.

Usually the DX station will have a big yagi, monobander or quad and that antenna does most of the work, especially when the wire is used for transmitting.

So whatever works out best and fits the budget, but most of all, just have fun and enjoy the hobby while trying to make the contacts.

 

[Kamikaze]

I had an all band 160 meter doublet fed with ladder line.

It was at 65' top feed point.

On 20 meters it would outperform my tribander installed above the doublet but only in the direction of the wire. SE-NW, it would scream into the Islands and into NW of the continent, sucked going into EU or S Africa.

Wires will work, as CK mentioned but the amount of real estate and predicting which way the lobes will shoot of the wire can be alot of fun, or headache depending on how you look at it.

+1

A 160 doublet @ 65' fed with good balanced feedline and a decent coupler will
smoke a 3 el. tribander in 2 directions.

Most put wire antenna up and hope for the best without knowing where the lobes will work.

Someone claiming wire antenna cannot keep up with a tribander must be missing something.

Maybe they use a 4:1 balun into a low impedance load.

Maybe they use unmatched coax after a tuner to a balun.

Maybe they are mistaken about the actual orientation of the wire for the target zone.

Hard to tell what's not right but wire antennas cut to work on 75 or 160 fed properly can be excellent performers on the higher bands.

Nothing beats a good monobander built properly but not everyone has the room or money.