[NLRS] Anyone using Quads?

[Duane Grotophorst]

--- "Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer"
<geraldj@isunet.net> wrote:
> Quads? Smoke and mirrors, and a general lack of
> forward gain with large
> cross polarized lobes at 45 degrees from straight
> ahead.
> 

I played with some W5UN designed 2M Quagis in the
early 80's for awhile. For awhile I was running the 11
element version of it on a 27ft boom as I recall. Did
it perform well for forward gain?, for the money,
time, and accuracy of construction I put into it, yes.
But I'm sure it fell far short of today�s beams for
the same boom length.

The one thing about that particular antenna that
sticks in my mind to this day was its lobes of the
back corners of the beam (around the 45 degree
points). I believe that it had significant actual gain
over a dipole in those lobes. Oddly enough it was
often a "feature" that made working stations of the
back corners very easy. The CC 17B2 I now have has a
very clean pattern that makes sneaking in a contest Q
off the back much tougher to do. 

> But then you could be looking at 11 element CC that
> produce far less
> then their claimed gain and are still being made and
> sold.

This particular company has always been notorious for
their optimistic gain claims. The antennas themselves
generally aren't bad, and are usually comparable for a
given boom length, just don't believe the advertised
gain figures. I have never seen any antenna design
achieve dramatically higher gain for a given boom
length than any other design using the same boom
length. So when I see some of these high gain claims
for short booms I simply don't believe them.
 
Duane
N9DG
EN53bj


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