[Antennas] Hello Antenna Friends

[Ray Brown]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "charmaster" <charmast at uslink.net>

>
>   Hello,
>
>   My name is John, KC0KVD en37hf. I am looking to purchase a 6 - meter
> Beam antenna to work ssb and code. What kind of antennas do some of
> you have? What have your experiences been with what you have? Bottom
> line: I am looking for the BEST 6 - Meter Horizontally Polarized Beam
> Antenna!! Tell me what you think??

  Well, altho I don't have it up, yet, assuming that you have a rotor (grin),
what I've been told is the best would be a Cushcraft A50-5S that's been
modified (a longer boom between the 2nd and 3rd directors) to give an
even greater front-to-back ratio. (I have the docs here somewhere, but
it was basically just extending the boom by 6' or so.)

  It kinda depends on just how much gain you want, at the expense of
all sides and the back. If the gain is high enough, then you'll literally
have to be aimed right at someone in order to even hear them calling.
So one other thing to consider would be a 2nd antenna, oh, say, cut
for 52.525, and hang it vertical. That way, you'd hear when the band
is coming alive and you'd have some idea of where to point to with
the big kahuna. :-) And, during eS, polarization gets tumbled and
jumbled, so that a vertical might actually be better in some cases
than a horizontal. Of course, not many folks run vertical 6m Yagis.
(But I know someone locally that does! :-)

                _Ray_        KBØSTN