Part 2 - 6 band hexbeam antenna construction

Research

Like with any projects I do I do a very serious research to see what am I dealing with. I cannot simply jump into a project and "go with the flow", I have to understand and control the process from the beginning to the end.

Google is your friend. As they say you can find on Google everything about everything these days. I remember the days when we paid big bucks to have fancy encyclopedias on the shelf. My parents had a huge library, my father collected several engineering books in 3 different languages. By now all those are outdated and not worth anything. In 50 years not only the world turned around, but all the professions engineering changed so much that what I studied 27 years ago now is almost irrelevant. But Goggle has answers for everything.

So I started searching, reading, searching, and reading more. I right away cam across of two excellent resources:

A very good collection of resources:
http://www.karinya.net/g3txq/hexbeam/

The designer of the broadband hexa beam antenna:
http://www.leoshoemaker.com/hexbeambyk4kio/general.html

A European site with a very nice design and lots of installation videos:
http://www.g3txq-hexbeam.com/

Beside these I jumped on youtube as well and searched for videos demonstrating how the antenna works and how it all comes together.

With the help of my trustee mentor Mike (VA3MW) we decided that we will do the following:

- I will build a hexa beam for 6 bands: 6m, 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m and 20m bands.
- Mike will help me mount it on to my chimney to replace the existing IMAX2000 10 meter antenna.
- Beside the antenna, antenna parts and feed-line we will need an antenna rotor, a rotor controller and we will need abut 120 feet of antenna rotor cable as well.

I was debating on buying a complete antenna kit for close to 700 dollars plus shipping, handling and taxes - or I can get the parts and build it myself. Looking at the available budget for this project the second option seem to give me more financial room. At the end I will still probably spend around 700, but that should be the whole cost including the rotor and the mounts.

So here we are, we started ordering parts for this project. The next section will specify what and from where.

Part 1 - 6 band hexbeam antenna construction

Introduction.

After the November ARRL Sweepstakes I was discussing my contest results with my friend Mike (VA3MW). As you saw in my previous article, I only have 2 vertical antennas, one for 10 meter and the other in the backyard for 10 through 160 meters. Of course I am and always been aware of the limitations of the vertical antennas, and the noise floor associated with it. Even with that I think I did good on the different contests till now, I entered in the rookie category. However we've been discussing on what solution we might be able to come up with, which can satisfy the need for directivity, small footprint and great performance.

Mike says we have real estate to work with as I have a backyard of 32.5 x 32.5 ft., but I do not want to put up a tower at this time, we can only work with about 30-35ft above ground level.

One idea was to run a cable on the park beside my house on the top of the trees,  and put a a big horizontal receiving loop, but at this time I have not found yet any reliable design I can work with on that perspective.

I have a Kenwood TS-590 radio which can accommodate a separate receiving antenna beside the 2 main antennas connected for transmission. I was thinking of connecting a big receiving loop to that port. However one day Mike came up with a better idea - he said I need a hexbeam antenna.

This grabbed my attention and with his direction I started researching the subject. When I saw the first few pictures of this antenna, I right away knew that this is doable, and this most likely will be my next antenna construction.

So I started researching, reading, researching more and more till at the end I had all pieces coming together in my mind.

I am not sure how you work, but for me to start a project like this I have to have a vision on how every single piece will fall into place. If something is not clear or not clarified, I cannot start. I can only start to build if all parts, resources are clarified and either have been purchased - or are on the way. I hate half built things which sit in your garage for years waiting for a part - and after the part arrived waiting for you to start over again. The big problem with these projects is that most likely will never get finished, and at the end they end up in the garbage because there is no use for them any longer after a few years.

So, I started looking up the parts and purchasing them.

The following article will talk about the resources, parts, costs, etc.

Multi-band vertical antenna (S9V43) installation

This has been done about a year ago, but I though I will post it on this blog, since it is HAM radio related.

After I purchased my Kenwood TS-590 station in 2012,  originally had only an IMAX 2000 antenna installed on the rooftop - strapped to my chimney. While this worked well on 10 meter (28MHz band) and on 12 meter, as soon as I started using it on upper bands it was clear that it will not perform well. This is after all a CB (Civil Band) antenna. I guess I was lucky as when I installed this antenna the 10 meter band was open and for about a month or two I was able to make lots of contacts. THen the band closed and I had to move to other bands - where my antenna was not performing as well as I wanted.

Due to the small space available in my backyard - I have a shed on a 32.5 x 32.5 ft backyard all antennas which require high towers, or more real estate like dipoles, inverted V's were out of question. The only thing I could opt for was another vertical, this time a 43ft long multi-band vertical from LDG Electronics. The selected antenna was the S9V43 antenna. This not only required minimal real estate for installation, but it has a green telescopic mast which very well is hidden in the neighborhood, so it does not attract unwanted attention from the neighbors.

Usually when I decide on something I do my homework. I spent days and days researching and learning about this antenna, how other do the installation, what are the best practices and of course what results one can expect from the antenna when it is properly installed.

I found a powerpoint document on the web created by Douglas Edmond Leach (VE3XK) who did a marvelous job on puling most of the data together about this vertical. The presentation can be fond here: Gound Mounted Verticals V10.

During the installation I followed most of his instructions and tried to make the installation as close to his as possible. The main difference that I have the antenna tuner built into my radio, so I did not use a remote antenna tuner as he did. For over a year now I was using this antenna in various competitions with variable results and luck. While I am happy with my results, I am not looking into replacing the IMAX 2000 antenna on the chimney with a much better multi-band hexa beam. That installation however will be detailed in another post.

For now I wanted to share the two videos related to the vertical antenna. The first, below is a time lapse video of the 2 days work I put into the installation of the S9V43 vertical antenna:

and the second video is an aerial video of these two antennas on my house and in my backyard:

I hope you enjoy these.