[50mhz] [VHF] Re: Cushcraft A270-10S (triband VHF/UHF) beam question

[William Pasternak]

John and All

Adding to Chris comment:  Years ago my late friend Larry Levy and I were 
given a Finco A-62 dual band 6 and 2 meter beam to review for 73 
Magazine.  He put it up at the family's summer vacation home at Rockaway 
Beach, Queens NY less than a block from the oceanfront.  I was about 15 
air miles line of sight away in Bensonhurst Brooklyn.

Using his Saturn 6 Halo I copied him at about S-8 on 50.4 Mc AM. (This 
was before MHz had been invented :-) .) He switched to the Finco A-62 
(fed by 7/8" hardline) aimed it toward me and was barely audible above 
the band noise.  On 2 meters I could not hear him at all nor could he 
hear me.

After some experimentation he found that removing the "collinear 2 meter 
elements" that the A-62 performed as well as any other 3 element 6 meter 
yagi of the mid-1960's era.  Thats how bad the interaction was between 
the 6 meter and 2 meter elements was.

If you have never seen one, follow this link and you will get quite a 
chuckle out of the claims made by the manufacturer for an antenna that 
turned out to be naught but a rotatable dummy load.

http://elektrotanya.com/PREVIEWS/45612216/23432455/antennak/finco_a-62_combination_6_and_2_meter_yagi_antenna.pdf_1.png

One last item:  A bit off topic but entertaining.  At that summer 
location Larry was running a pair of homebrew 40 watt transmitters using 
single 6146 tubes as the final amplifier and what he called "Hairy 
Modulation" to place his voice onto the carrier.  The modulator was 
naught but an old toss-away single ended public address amplifier that 
used a single 6V6 output tube in Class A. To use it as a modulator, he 
simply connected the plate of the 6V6 to the screen grid of the 6146 in 
either of the RF decks through a .5 mfd 1kv capacitor.  The name "Hairy 
Modulation" came about from his first QSO on 6 meters where the 
answering station told Larry that there was plenty of audio but that 
"...it sounded kind of hairy."  And with that, "Hairy Modulation" was born.

They say truth is stranger than fiction, but those who knew the late 
WA2INM never doubted his exploits on 50 Mc and above -- most of it well 
documented in the pages of the defunct 73 Amateur Radio magazine.  .

de
WA6ITF

On 4/14/2014 7:46 PM, Chris Boone wrote:
> the 6m and 2m elements would interact bigtime...
>
> Chris
> WB5ITT
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: John Geiger <af5cc at fidmail.com>
>> Sent: Apr 14, 2014 2:55 PM
>> To: vhf contesting <vhfcontesting at contesting.com>, vhf at w6yx.stanford.edu, 50mhz <50mhz at mailman.qth.net>, 6meter at yahoogroups.com
>> Subject: [50mhz] Cushcraft A270-10S (triband VHF/UHF) beam question
>>
>> I have a question about the Cushcraft 6m/2m/70cm yagi. Every picture I see
>> of it has the 6m elements horizontal and the 2m/70cm portion vertical. That
>> wouldn't work for me, I want to use it on 2m and 70cm SSB. It is possible
>> to mount all 3 bands with horizontal elements?
>>
>> It looks like it is physically possible, but will it hurt performance, or
>> will it still work ok that way?
>>
>> John AF5CC
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