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Big wheel antennas
6 July 2015 | by 
Next winter I want to replace my hand rotated beams for 70cm and 2m with a big wheel stack for either 2m or 70cm. I was going to erect a 2m big wheel stack (of 2) but looking at the logs it may better to erect one for 70cm which is the more interesting band.
2 big wheels, suitably stacked, should give about 5dBd gain horizontal and need no turning. This is not far off the gain from my 5el yagi in the best direction. Quite often I work stations off the direction of maximum gain. For my kind of operation (mainly UKAC contests and beacon monitoring) I think a big wheel is well suited.
70cm big wheel stacks are a lot smaller than the 2m versions. The stacking distance is smaller too. Commercial big wheels are available from Wimo in Germany.
See http://www.wimo.de/big-wheel-antennas_e.html .
Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.
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