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More Hexbeam
25 February 2013 | by 
“What have you done to my play set?” This gym made a convenient place to string wires, etc. Two poles in the photo form part of the EWE RX antenna here at K8GU that was hastily erected before the NA Sprint CW. One of the poles is ty-wrapped to the play set. Doing my best to keep it klassy and impress the neighbors.
And, we’re up in the air! The M2 9M2SSB is a little bit out of alignment due to the hex getting tangled in one of the antennas that it was due to replace. I have already realigned that. So far, the antenna seems to have useful front-to-back. Gain is hard to tell since I took down all of the antennas it was to replace. But, it does seem to work. I’m suffering from high SWR (above 3) on both 21 and 50 MHz. G3TXQ warns of interaction between 18 MHz and 50 MHz. Do not yet know the cause, but I’m looking into it.
Although the antenna is relatively easy to handle, I don’t plan to make a habit of taking it down for work. Speaking of taking down, the 40m dipole whose center insulator is just visible behind the reflector of the 2-meter beam will be replaced by an as-of-yet-secret antenna.
2 Responses to “More Hexbeam”
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Could be the 40M dipole is too close to your hexbeam; that could easily be the reason your 15 Meter SWR is so high! Careful what you replace it with!
I’m always impressed with this beam when I hear it on the air!
Greg, thanks for the tip. I suspect you are right about the 40m dipole and that may be affecting 6m also. I hope the WX is good enough when I get home from work to check that out. I have a better location picked out for the 40m dipole that should get it farther away from the hex. It’s definitely close enough for severe coupling right now.
It’s been fun to build and play with so far although I haven’t made it down to the shack in the evenings until after the high bands have closed up. I’d like to have 15m working for ARRL DX this weekend just to play around a bit. Especially with the sagging SFI that might be the band to be on!