Post hexbeam

At last a bit of good news, I managed to sell the Hexbeam antenna over the weekend for the same price I paid. So apart from a bit of naivety I haven’t lost out too much!

The Yagi is now fully tuned and working well, but the winds are still blowing hard so raising the tilt over mast has been a bit on and off and the forecast says it will be another two days before it calms down.

 

With the success of the 17m Moxon I am thinking about adding a 12m Moxon as well. It should be simple to build and if I can’t hang the 17m under the Yagi I can always try to add the 12m antenna which obviously will be lighter. My only extra cost will be adding another coax cable from the 12m antenna back to the shack via the tilt over mast, otherwise I have all the parts I need somewhere in my shed.

 

If this is all successful I can then take my old cobweb down from the side of the house and all antennas will be moved across in to my mini paddock, which will make the XYL and family happy!

Antenna Frustrations & a Mosley Mini 32-A Yagi

I've finally tracked down a Mosley Yagi 32 - A mini antenna . I've been searching for one of these lightweight antennas for a while. I hope to get it this week and if it's light enough, (the brochure says it's 4.31 kg around 9lbs) it should be able to fit above the 17m moxon.

My antenna collection is growing but not without frustration! Now that I've built and tested the Hexbeam which is without doubt a good antenna, there is a problem, it is just too big! 

No matter how I tried to place it the Hexbeam was just too large and these sales ads of "ideal for a small garden" are beyond me. Brilliant for a field day or some event where it was for temporary use or somewhere hidden away, but I happen to live in an area of outstanding natural beauty where the locals would run riot with an antenna that size near to the road. The first hint came when assembling the poles and my wife who is normally very tolerant with my antennas remarked about the width of the antenna!

At least the Moxon is disguised against my treeline and it seemed to be dwarfed by the hex and I suspect it will be the same for the mini Yagi.

So now doing all that work of having rebuilt the centre post so there are two sets, assembled it, tested it, I now have to sell it which is a real shame.

The Mosley Mini 32-A has now been assembled and tested and seems to be working well. The SWR readings are all good peaking at 1.0 to 1.3 on all parts of the three bands I'm interested in, tweaking the FB is a little more tricky which I am in the process of doing at the moment but its just a case of adjusting the reflector.

I am unable at present to have the Moxon below the Yagi as they both have different mast plates sizes, the Yagi being 1.5" and the Moxon is 2". So I'll need to get plates that match in size

Typically the WX has closed in for the next few days with gales forecast so all work has had to stop. Might as well start advertising the hex in one of the radio classifieds!