[HCARC] HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO BUILD A HEXBEAM???

[Gary J - N5BAA]

Bob Ritchie – Have you decided on the topics for next years presentations??  If so, did John Weisinger W5BGP who is a Winter Texan member of the club is willing to teach how to build a Hexbeam.  If there is no space on the monthly list, he will work individually with members or a group of members to learn how to build one.  Bob has made 3 of them so far, and as such seems to be the ranking member with Hexbeam knowledge.

For all – John has a home brewed Hexbeam at each of his QTH’s (Fredericksburg and Ashland, OR).  He has done the hard parts of making the antennas – ferreted out the sources for the materials for the center hub, connecting flanges, and radial arms.  He has made his using the Broad Band instructions posted on the net by K4KIO ( http://www.k4kio.com/ ) and Roger NA4RR ( http://www.k4hex.com/home.asp ) who both sell Hexbeam kits and have instructions posted for home brewing.  Both of the websites specify the use of fiberglass radial arm kit #2 from Max Gain Systems ( mgs4u.com/).  The only harder thing to fashion is the center support hub available from http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hexagonal-Beam-Antenna-hub-/151470499844?pt=US_Radio_Comm_Antennas&hash=item2344586804 or by manufacturing one from 12 U-bolts, 2 flanges and the support plate made from Starboard (high density PVC plastic 3/4 inches thick available on the net).  John has used both aluminum and the starboard and uses the starboard to manufacture clips for holding the copper antenna wires in place.

One of the best features of these antennas other than that they are small, work, are quiet, and are directional is that they seem to work fine raised somewhere between 20 and 30 feet off of the ground.  In fact, John’s Hexbeam in Fredericksburg is only 20 feet up.  They are light and have minimal wind resistance so they are turned easily with light weight TV antenna rotors.  One could also easily turn one by strong arm if necessary.

Since the price of pre-made kits has been dropping – NA4RR’s kit is $450 plus $39.00 shipping,  K4KIO’s kit is $689.00 including shipping, John is putting together a line by line cost estimate to see if it is worth it any longer to Home brew the antenna.  More on this later.  

While talking to John the other night I lamented that it was too bad that a hexbeam for 40, 80, 160 would be so big as to be impractical.  He said – NOT SO!!  Large they might be, but if one were to have 7 support poles (HMMM – a use for my pile of telephone poles) and could get the antenna mounting point up 30-40 feet in the air it is quite possible to make a rotatable Hexbeam by stringing the wire through pulleys to allow it to be repositioned in any quadrant and since the antenna focuses the signal in a 45 degree cone the actual number of movements is manageable.  I can see a 30 foot phone pole in the ground (3 feet) leaving a 27 foot high pole with a crank down able mast mounted to it’s side to get the antenna up to around 40+ feet.

Gary J
N5BAA

"Amateur radio--a real time social network using radio waves"