Here is the component list that I've paid for so far:

From Lowes:
1. Poles for holding the wire up 6 @ $5.25 each. (31.50 total)
These are actually 10'6" sections of 1-3/8" 18 gauge pipe that is used for the tops of cyclone fences.

2. Clothes line pulley: 2 @ $3.37 each. (6.74 total)

3. 16" Animal Tie Out: 6 @ $2.36 each. (14.16 total)

4. 1-1/16 to 2" stainless steel hose clamps: 10 pack for $5.47

From 156 Supply: (a local store that sells clearance / fire sale iems)

5. 450 foot of #12 stranded copper electrical wire @ $.04 a foot: $18.00

6. 420 foot of 1/4" braided nylon rope @ $.04 a foot: $16.80

7. Rectangle metal bars about 8" long and 1/2" thick: 2 @ $.99 (1.98 total)

Total: $94.62 plus tax come to: $102.43

Here is a shot of all of the components except for the poles. Near-Beer not included!
Shot of the poles, I have a bag over one end for easier handling.

A close up shot of the pulleys installed on what will be the top pole of each end of the beam.
This is that 1/2" bar stock that you were probably wondering about. I needed something that
I could use to hold the pulley firm against the pole with and not have it flopping around.
This did a really nice job of it.

The extra hose clamps that you see will be used to guy the poles with.

This picture will give you a rough idea of what I am planning. VERY rough idea, hi hi.

 Update: Sept 02, 2003.
My first attempt at this has failed due to the support poles being too weak. In attempts to put the poles in a vertical position they bent like a bow. Ug. Well back to the drawing board.
 

Update: Sept 03, 2003.
I talked with my friend N5KA today on the way to work and he told me that you can use the fencing poles. He said it could be successfully done up to 40 foot as long as it was guyed every 10 feet. Also that it required several (at least 2!) people to put it up. (doh! Figured THAT one out on my own! hi hi) I will have to think about wether I want to try it that way again or just buy push-up poles.

In retrospect it seemed like a doomed antenna day anway; I measured the guy lines for the first pole twice and still cut them the wrong size. I over torqued one of the guy anchors trying to get it further in the ground and the top broke off... you get the picture! heh. More later. M@

More pictures and such to come later!

Update: January 15, 2004. 5:32 AM

Well I've had the Yagi finished for the most part and up for a while now. I wound up having to go with two 30 foot pushup poles from Lowes. (or home depot or some other locale)

I must add that guying two pushup poles takes a LOT of rope!! Due to not wanting to fork our more cash for additional pushup poles I downsized the project to only 5 or 6 elements. I haven't done extensive tests but it seems to have anywhere from 1 to 3 db of gain in the direction it's pointed over my vertical. The pattern seems to be rather wide as well since I seem to get good reports from the north-east states. I don't have any specific examples as I just jotted a few down on my pad and who knows which page it's on! lol :)

I believe that the DB rating would be much better except for a few items. Firstly I'm only about 30ft up at the apex of the inverted V's and besides being a bit short it is probably drastically changing the pattern of the antenna. Secondly I think there is a hill in the distance. Thirdly I have fed the antenna feed point with rg-58 which comes down to the ground, there it connects to rg8x and runs about (guessing here) 300 to 350 feet. Much longer run compared to the distance to my vertical which is half 8x and half 8u coax. So a bit of DB lost in the coax. I think if this thing was strung up high in trees it might perform better. that is causing some issues.

A considerable amount of tension on the back side guy ropes was necessary as I had to put a LOT of pull on the rope between the two poles to get it taught. You will notice in the pictures below that there is still an amount of sag in it. I eventually had to lower it down and add some rope to the the reflector V point so that the reflector would hang down lower so as to be equal in height with the rest of them. It just sat so high because it was the closest to the pushup pole.

Also I did not use the weight on one end of the rope as pictured in the example above. I wound up taking (for each pole) a hose clamp and putting it around the pole and then taking some 12 gauge solid wire and looping it 2 or 3 times around the base of a screwdriver handle (to size it) and using the hose clamp to hold it to the pole. Then I hooked a carbiner to the wire. Once I pulled the rope tight to my satisfaction I would tie a 'loop' not at the appropriate spot and hook it with the carbiner.

This did two things, it gave me a good place to hook on to and when I unhook it and lower it the knot is big enough that it stops before it goes through the top pulley which gives me a nice stopping spot. I'll try and remember to get some pictures of this later.

The pushup poles ran about $50 each if memory serves. I did wind up using more rope than I had originally purchased. Ug. The pulleys did a great job though. I did have to 'pinch' the aluminum forms (go back up and look at the pictures above to get an idea, these were pre-pinch pictures though) so that the rope wouldn't slip out of the pulley groove. Still had a few annoying spots but was able to move around with the rope on the front and snap it back into line. Glad I did that before I pushed up the pole because pushing up the pole is a chore!
 

Update: 5/14/2004

I recently bought a mfj 259B antenna analyzer so thought I would jump in the truck with it and drive out in the back yard and test the antenna. I parked back behind the reflector and disconnected what was left of the rg8x coax (Wendy and that lawnmower!) from the rg58 that went up to the feedpoint. I'll guess that there is about 50' of the 58 coax, I didn't measure it again.

Well I hooked it up to the analyzer and it was showing an swr of about 1.7 to 1 or so but an impedance of about 80 ohms! Certainly higher than I thought! I guess I need to get out there again with a tape ane measure everything off and see what has to be fixed. Anyway back to the story. I connected the rg58 to my icom 730 in the truck and fired up on about 14.250 or so and gave a few calls. Finally got a gentleman in West Virginia. He was running a dipole and 706 mIIg. I copied him about a 55 or so, 56 on peaks. This by ear of course since my needle is stingy. Probably an s2 on the meter at best. Static crashes with the cold cloudy weather here.

He copied me at S9 to s9 +10. Anyway we finished the visit and I went back to the analyzer. The coax feed line loss was over 5dB !!! I'm not quite sure why it is so high. I will have to do some more tests with it, possibly try chaning the coax out to 8x or something, though 8x is supposedly only .5dB less lossy per 100ft. (or something like that) ...I don't have a coaxial balun at the feed point (trying to keep the line weight down) so will be interested to try that and look at the numbers again.
 

Update: 6/3/2004

Well I had decided to go out and take the thing down today as I'm tired of mowing around it. ...but first I figured that I would try and make a few low powered Q's. I'm guessing on ssb through the 50' or so of rg58 that the output from my rig in the truck parked behind the antenna is about 5 watts. Needless to say I made the following contacts this evening:

K3ZMJ AL in Pa. gave me about a 5x3. 1200 miles.

KB9HKF Jim in In. gave me a 5x8. 707 miles.

K3WWW Bud in Pa. gave me a 5x8. 1224 miles.

I called the first station and the next two called me after I had finished with the previous call! Needless to say I have decided to leave the wire up until I get the tower up! I was surprised at how well it worked at low power :) It was a beautiful day for it too, low 70's outside so I had the windows down and watched the sun setting while I qso'd!

Anyway to the pictures!!

Below is the email that Mike W6YDG sent me with the specs for this fun antenna! Thanks Mike!

Mike, Here is a list of the wire beams:
Element 20meter 12 element 1/2 length swr 1.38 at 14.2 Mhz

(measurement on left is distance between elements, measurement on right is length of element on EACH SIDE of rope/beam)

R 00.0             17.74 ft
DE 19.3 ft       17.22 ft
D1 26.34 ft      16.37 ft
D2 36.64 ft      16.37 ft
D3 46.94 ft      16.37 ft
D4 57.24 ft      16.37 ft
D5 67.54 ft      16.37 ft
D6 77.84 ft      16.37 ft
D7 88.14 ft      16.37 ft
D8 98.44 ft      16.37 ft
D9 108.74 ft    16.37 ft
D10 119.04 ft  16.37 ft
Maximum gain front= 10.23 dB
Maximum gain back= .21 dB
Front to back ratio= 10.44 dB
3db beamwidth= 54 degrees
 

Above are the dimensions for the 20 meter beam.
Notice how the chart works. From the reflector to the Driven element it is 19.3 feet. And from the Driven element the first director it is 26.34 feet. And so on.

Total length from front of beam to back is 119.04 feet. Another note is the reflector length is 17.74 feet per side. so a total length of 35.48 feet long and so on for the rest of the elements.

We fed all the antennas with 9913 coax so to minimize the loss in distance. (we wanted all the signal we could get) Hi Hi. The coax was fed into a 1 to 1 balun to keep the RF going the correct direction. Another thing you might want to remember is the length will change if you make the elements flat. These area built as a V beam. Same as an inverted V antenna. Have a blast and if your interested in the rest of the dimensions feel free to Email me again. I actually have a 160 meter beam but ran out of room (and energy). It takes a bit more room. 299 feet from front to back and has 4 elements. Crazy huh?

Talk to you soon
Mike Farinsky W6YDG

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