I don’t even know what stacking means . 🤷🏼♂️.. I just know I put up my first 7 element Maco , 37.5 foot boom length,, 42 feet high ,, went direct fed through a 1:1 balun, and have nearly flat SWR’s from 26.500 to 27.455 . I’m gonna take that as a win. I let Mother Nature do the rest and don’t overthink anything else , and just enjoy it
I used to have a 26b2 vertically stacked. It was very good on long distance repeater and also simplex work. When I pointed in the general direction of a stationary repeater it became so easy to get into it with minimal power. If I pointed away the repeater would disappear. I also worked a lot of tropo to other states on FM 2-meter. Stacking them horizontally allowed me to work many other states on 2m ssb. Coverage was very bad on long range FM repeaters/simplex. This was to be expected.
2 місяці тому
OK here goes a basic antenna speak from a general class amateur radio operator that has built, bought and used many antennas for many frequencies over the years.. I started out with CB radio back in the 1970's and had a 1/4 wave vertical that was home made.. We bought an Avanti Astro beam and put that up 30 feet on a pole and that worked good for my dad who had a Cobra base station and my brother and I had mobiles with a 1/4 wave whip and a coil loaded trunk mount hustler.. Fast forward to the late 1980's when I picked up again in CB and built a 3 element beam and a ham operator saw me messing with it and said maybe you should test and be a ham operator.. All downhill from there with time and money in the hobby, I acquired and rebuilt an abandoned 4 element moonraker antenna into a cross polarized dual driven element 6 meter beam that I fed with about 150 watts and made contacts all over the place.. What I have learned over the years is that for 50mhz down going over 1/2 wavelength in length is an area of quickly diminishing return.. You gain more from stacking phased antennas but where you really gain is by going higher.. 1/2 wavelength is about the minimum, 1 wavelength is good 2 wavelengths is better and 4 wavelengths is excellent.. As with length there are limits to height but mostly just the cost and size of a structure that at CB radio frequencies would be like 35 feet for 1 wavelength in height for a horizontal Yagi antenna.. For a vertical Yagi you would want to add another 15 to 20 feet in height to get the bottom of the antenna to that 35 foot height.. Higher in height increases your direct line of sight with the horizon and that increases your local footprint.. When propagation is involved aka skip getting over 2 wavelengths in height becomes a no gain area for skip.. Spacing vertically 2 horizontal Yagi's 1/4 or 1/2 wavelength apart will gain 6db over just one.. You can do the same with vertically polarized Yagi's spaced horizontally 9' or 18' apart and this would be the preferred setup for a CB DX'er at one to two wavelengths in height.. The beams themselves should be a minimum of 2 elements consisting of a reflector and a driven element.. Adding one to 3 director elements will increase your gain and directionality with more than that not giving much more forward gain.. Another form of antenna is a cubical quad that is a wire element about 9 feet per side square separated by fiberglass or plastic rods where you can have a similar number of elements as the Yagi described.. These things are huge but you gain the benefit of cross polarization where your signal can be both vertically and horizontally polarized at the same time thus compressing your RF emissions into a more focused true beam of a signal getting tighter with the number of director element you place in front of the driven element.. I have seen these things with dual reflector but I am not sure what you actually gain other than back side rejection of signals.. So in conclusion YES antennas can get too big/long with diminishing returns to length and number of elements.. I have a 2 meter 32-19-B2 Yagi by the way for 144mhz SSB and it is a monster for that band and on any day I can work stations to the South, East and North of me several hundred miles away because I have line of sight there.. Same goes for 70cm SSB and ATV with a similar Yagi on that band.. During band openings I have talked to operators in Texas, Florida and Nova Scotia.. There are plenty of antenna handbooks and premade antennas out there if you have the cash..
Well, you speak of "this type of scenario"... I suppose it is a matter of what you are trying to accomplish. Your analysis of reducing the beamwith is true. However try 24 degrees, not 15 degrees. On 27.025, the goal of most operators is to hold it down with one particular station at a given time for as many keys as possible. Antennas can turn and move to where you want them to point. My antenna that you are referring to was actually 117 feet long and 16 elements. It did its Jobe extremely well. Approved its point (no pun intended) That antenna was NOT intended to blanket the east coast. On the bowl, there are a lot of larger stations to contend with. So if the goal 8s tonlicknit down with one of them, it is also desired to not hear the one to the left or right. Is that the best antenna for new guy who wants to kick back and talk roneverybody? Absolutely not . Hence the reason I took it down a long time ago. I wanted to do something that had never been done. And I had a fun time with it. As for the idea of stacking, there is more to an antenna than gain. Yes, stacking 2 antennas each 57 feet long would be equal gain and if stacked side by side would yield the same result. Stacking the same two antennas one above the other also results in the same gain, and as you said achieves a wider beam width. HOWEVER, Angle of arrival, and take of angle are actually more important than gain. Stacking one above the other results in a flatter take off angle. ( remember that narrow beam width you spoke of earier?) Well on 27.025 most of what we do is within the continental United States. Since you know that angle of incidence equal angle of reflection, a flat or low take off angle will over shoot conditions. On the other extreme don't worry because the is no NVIS or Near Vertical Incident Skip. So don't think that you can be in Santa Maria Ca and point your array up at 60 degrees and come down in Nevada . But I digress... At the same time, having the great beamwidth of Vertical Stacking allows you to get your ears plugged by more people The moral of this is that there is no best antenna, and that you should experiment and know why you are experimenting.... As for now, I'm on a 47.87 foot long 7 element Horizontal Yagi and it works well. Though I can get my ears pinned back by Pennsylvania Pimp while at the same time getting hammered by Sir King of the South in Georgia. As for the long Yagi making you actually look weaker 5o the stations on the side, I hope so. And that is by design. If it is what you want it is a good design. For those who drive a box stock Z28 to say that the guy who build his Z28 to turn 9 seconds in the 1/4 mile made a bad choice because he can't get 17 MPG is just ridiculous. I say do what works for you, and what you enjoy. This hobby is Manny different things to different people.
Great feedback! In the big picture, I think we are on the same page. I like that you mention angle of arrival. Question for you --- have you tried your antenna tower down vs. up to change your take off angle and what did you notice? Also, is that the reason you never stacked beams vertically? I haven't into that yet but is the angle really too low with vertically stacked beams for 11m skip for West to East coast skip to not be ideal? I see big contest stations for HF doing it but this certainly could be for reasons going way further than just USA communications. Would love to have your thoughts on that. Cheers!
@@Z28videogates yes. Makes a world of difference. Hence the reason for the next experiment... I am building another 7 of the same spec to mount at the top of the tower at 75 feet. My current antenna .is at 36 feet. I use a Dielectric EIA flange coaxial transfer switch to select top or bottom antenna. Tower is electric crank up and down.
Interesting topic. If you do some research on beams you'll find most of them are not as narrow as you might think. If you're talking to your neighbor 5 miles away that might matter but for DX it actually lessens the effect as the further away you go on a map the wider your angle becomes. You can try drawing this out on a map and you'll see what I mean. If you're in Seattle and have a very powerful beam covering 30 degrees you actually would have coverage from Texas to NY because the angle spreads out that wide by the time it gets to the East coast. If you created some crazy high powered beam with only 15 degrees - from Seattle you still would have coverage from New York to Florida. Great to see discussion on these topics - thank you for the video!
Good input! Agree it widens out with distance (still 15 degrees but as you go further it spreads more) but the opposite would be true for closer DX. It would be fun to colab and have a discussion on this stuff! I notice using 2 meter and 440 beams, the beam can get really narrow and "too" directional. One blip of the rotor and the signal can drop quite a bit. But looking at this further I think it would take even more than 100 foot boom to get 15 degrees - more like 200 feet! It would be easier to install 2 smaller beams stacked and supposedly better angle of radiation with stacked beams too (something I didn't mention). Cheers!
I first got into CB back in the 70's as part of my signaling merit badge project , but I wasn't really hooked on radio until my dad got stationed at Misawa . The first time I laid eyes on that Elephant Cage I was blown away but little did I know that a few months later I would get to see the monstrosity at Elmendorf . If you've never seen a Flare9 in person you missed seeing one of the the most impressive arrays ever built , so to answer the question from my perspective , no an antenna can not be too big . If I had an extra 40 acres and a few hundred grand , but I don't so I'll keep saving for a Long John 7 and stick to my A99 and Moxon for the time being.
I just saw your comment. Very cool! I think you are referring to this antenna here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FLR-9 But it's use is for direction finding so it kind of adds to my point. If your signal is very directional, then that means the signal is very strong in that direction and NOT in the others. For CB/DX, do we want very narrow directionality? If you could design an antenna with unlimited physical limitations, would you build a 1000 foot long yagi with a 1 degree beamwidth? But to be fair, for 11m, for an antenna to be very narrow, it would have to be like crazy big like 200+ feet. Even the MMM beam isn't big enough at 117 feet to be too directional yet. So in the physical limitations of the real world, I agree with you, no real antenna can be too big.
@@Z28videogates Those are them , but those pictures really don't do them justice . I'm on the east coast so if I was aiming for a very specific location , say the old South African station or Australia I might want something more narrow with a decent power rating , something my moxon just doesn't have .
it depends on the application, a beam antenna is for selective operation, you can op for shorter beams with larger beamwidth and less rejection but if you are surrounded by lots of traffic and noise which omnis do pick up, then you will appreciate the rejection and selectivity of a beam when working your station .
The operators with 100' beams want to have narrow beam widths to reduce local interference. There are very narrow 2m antennas for earth-moon-earth communication. Two beams stacked broadside. Are easier to turn than 100'.
Good question. Figure two antennas would need first a power divider so the antennas themselves would only see half the total power. But it would require one heck of a power divider!
Rhombic is not practical for 11 meters ..u would have to have multiple full wave length section ..it would take a huge amount of space to do it proper ...but it would definitely talk across the pond ..I prefure the quad over any other antenna period
@@JustinRuth-km4wz rhombic is the MOST practical! Just takes real estate. Had a 15m Rhombic for a partial season, only problem was ice weight breakage in Wyoming. WY7AC, +31 years of telegraphy.
I guess it's what you want. Some people want that rejection and some don't. I guess the point of this video is that more directional (just blindly seeking more dB gain) isn't always the end all be all. 73.
The idea for this video came from when I was using a 2 meter M2 2M12 antenna. That antenna is a Yagi for 2 meters with a boom length of about 20 feet. Figure the equivalent antenna for 11m would be about 110 feet. I noticed how directional it was. It would seem to me it would be much better to stack two shorter length beams vertically so the horizontal beamwidth is the same while the extra gain came from narrowing the vertical beamwidth instead. Most of the big HF stations stack beams vertically for my guess, this reason. Cheers!
I don’t even know what stacking means . 🤷🏼♂️.. I just know I put up my first 7 element Maco , 37.5 foot boom length,, 42 feet high ,, went direct fed through a 1:1 balun, and have nearly flat SWR’s from 26.500 to 27.455 . I’m gonna take that as a win. I let Mother Nature do the rest and don’t overthink anything else , and just enjoy it
Hey there Z28 Videogates! Thanks for posting this video!😀👍🏁
I used to have a 26b2 vertically stacked.
It was very good on long distance repeater and also simplex work.
When I pointed in the general direction of a stationary repeater it became so easy to get into it with minimal power.
If I pointed away the repeater would disappear.
I also worked a lot of tropo to other states on FM 2-meter.
Stacking them horizontally allowed me to work many other states on 2m ssb. Coverage was very bad on long range FM repeaters/simplex. This was to be expected.
OK here goes a basic antenna speak from a general class amateur radio operator that has built, bought and used many antennas for many frequencies over the years.. I started out with CB radio back in the 1970's and had a 1/4 wave vertical that was home made.. We bought an Avanti Astro beam and put that up 30 feet on a pole and that worked good for my dad who had a Cobra base station and my brother and I had mobiles with a 1/4 wave whip and a coil loaded trunk mount hustler.. Fast forward to the late 1980's when I picked up again in CB and built a 3 element beam and a ham operator saw me messing with it and said maybe you should test and be a ham operator.. All downhill from there with time and money in the hobby, I acquired and rebuilt an abandoned 4 element moonraker antenna into a cross polarized dual driven element 6 meter beam that I fed with about 150 watts and made contacts all over the place.. What I have learned over the years is that for 50mhz down going over 1/2 wavelength in length is an area of quickly diminishing return.. You gain more from stacking phased antennas but where you really gain is by going higher.. 1/2 wavelength is about the minimum, 1 wavelength is good 2 wavelengths is better and 4 wavelengths is excellent.. As with length there are limits to height but mostly just the cost and size of a structure that at CB radio frequencies would be like 35 feet for 1 wavelength in height for a horizontal Yagi antenna.. For a vertical Yagi you would want to add another 15 to 20 feet in height to get the bottom of the antenna to that 35 foot height.. Higher in height increases your direct line of sight with the horizon and that increases your local footprint.. When propagation is involved aka skip getting over 2 wavelengths in height becomes a no gain area for skip.. Spacing vertically 2 horizontal Yagi's 1/4 or 1/2 wavelength apart will gain 6db over just one.. You can do the same with vertically polarized Yagi's spaced horizontally 9' or 18' apart and this would be the preferred setup for a CB DX'er at one to two wavelengths in height.. The beams themselves should be a minimum of 2 elements consisting of a reflector and a driven element.. Adding one to 3 director elements will increase your gain and directionality with more than that not giving much more forward gain.. Another form of antenna is a cubical quad that is a wire element about 9 feet per side square separated by fiberglass or plastic rods where you can have a similar number of elements as the Yagi described.. These things are huge but you gain the benefit of cross polarization where your signal can be both vertically and horizontally polarized at the same time thus compressing your RF emissions into a more focused true beam of a signal getting tighter with the number of director element you place in front of the driven element.. I have seen these things with dual reflector but I am not sure what you actually gain other than back side rejection of signals.. So in conclusion YES antennas can get too big/long with diminishing returns to length and number of elements.. I have a 2 meter 32-19-B2 Yagi by the way for 144mhz SSB and it is a monster for that band and on any day I can work stations to the South, East and North of me several hundred miles away because I have line of sight there.. Same goes for 70cm SSB and ATV with a similar Yagi on that band.. During band openings I have talked to operators in Texas, Florida and Nova Scotia.. There are plenty of antenna handbooks and premade antennas out there if you have the cash..
Well, you speak of "this type of scenario"... I suppose it is a matter of what you are trying to accomplish. Your analysis of reducing the beamwith is true. However try 24 degrees, not 15 degrees. On 27.025, the goal of most operators is to hold it down with one particular station at a given time for as many keys as possible. Antennas can turn and move to where you want them to point. My antenna that you are referring to was actually 117 feet long and 16 elements. It did its Jobe extremely well. Approved its point (no pun intended)
That antenna was NOT intended to blanket the east coast. On the bowl, there are a lot of larger stations to contend with. So if the goal 8s tonlicknit down with one of them, it is also desired to not hear the one to the left or right.
Is that the best antenna for new guy who wants to kick back and talk roneverybody? Absolutely not . Hence the reason I took it down a long time ago. I wanted to do something that had never been done. And I had a fun time with it.
As for the idea of stacking, there is more to an antenna than gain. Yes, stacking 2 antennas each 57 feet long would be equal gain and if stacked side by side would yield the same result.
Stacking the same two antennas one above the other also results in the same gain, and as you said achieves a wider beam width. HOWEVER, Angle of arrival, and take of angle are actually more important than gain.
Stacking one above the other results in a flatter take off angle. ( remember that narrow beam width you spoke of earier?) Well on 27.025 most of what we do is within the continental United States. Since you know that angle of incidence equal angle of reflection, a flat or low take off angle will over shoot conditions.
On the other extreme don't worry because the is no NVIS or Near Vertical Incident Skip. So don't think that you can be in Santa Maria Ca and point your array up at 60 degrees and come down in Nevada . But I digress...
At the same time, having the great beamwidth of Vertical Stacking allows you to get your ears plugged by more people
The moral of this is that there is no best antenna, and that you should experiment and know why you are experimenting....
As for now, I'm on a 47.87 foot long 7 element Horizontal Yagi and it works well. Though I can get my ears pinned back by Pennsylvania Pimp while at the same time getting hammered by Sir King of the South in Georgia.
As for the long Yagi making you actually look weaker 5o the stations on the side, I hope so. And that is by design. If it is what you want it is a good design.
For those who drive a box stock Z28 to say that the guy who build his Z28 to turn 9 seconds in the 1/4 mile made a bad choice because he can't get 17 MPG is just ridiculous.
I say do what works for you, and what you enjoy. This hobby is Manny different things to different people.
Great feedback! In the big picture, I think we are on the same page. I like that you mention angle of arrival. Question for you --- have you tried your antenna tower down vs. up to change your take off angle and what did you notice? Also, is that the reason you never stacked beams vertically? I haven't into that yet but is the angle really too low with vertically stacked beams for 11m skip for West to East coast skip to not be ideal? I see big contest stations for HF doing it but this certainly could be for reasons going way further than just USA communications. Would love to have your thoughts on that. Cheers!
@@Z28videogates yes. Makes a world of difference. Hence the reason for the next experiment... I am building another 7 of the same spec to mount at the top of the tower at 75 feet. My current antenna .is at 36 feet. I use a Dielectric EIA flange coaxial transfer switch to select top or bottom antenna. Tower is electric crank up and down.
Interesting topic. If you do some research on beams you'll find most of them are not as narrow as you might think. If you're talking to your neighbor 5 miles away that might matter but for DX it actually lessens the effect as the further away you go on a map the wider your angle becomes. You can try drawing this out on a map and you'll see what I mean. If you're in Seattle and have a very powerful beam covering 30 degrees you actually would have coverage from Texas to NY because the angle spreads out that wide by the time it gets to the East coast. If you created some crazy high powered beam with only 15 degrees - from Seattle you still would have coverage from New York to Florida. Great to see discussion on these topics - thank you for the video!
Good input! Agree it widens out with distance (still 15 degrees but as you go further it spreads more) but the opposite would be true for closer DX. It would be fun to colab and have a discussion on this stuff! I notice using 2 meter and 440 beams, the beam can get really narrow and "too" directional. One blip of the rotor and the signal can drop quite a bit. But looking at this further I think it would take even more than 100 foot boom to get 15 degrees - more like 200 feet! It would be easier to install 2 smaller beams stacked and supposedly better angle of radiation with stacked beams too (something I didn't mention). Cheers!
I first got into CB back in the 70's as part of my signaling merit badge project , but I wasn't really hooked on radio until my dad got stationed at Misawa . The first time I laid eyes on that Elephant Cage I was blown away but little did I know that a few months later I would get to see the monstrosity at Elmendorf . If you've never seen a Flare9 in person you missed seeing one of the the most impressive arrays ever built , so to answer the question from my perspective , no an antenna can not be too big . If I had an extra 40 acres and a few hundred grand , but I don't so I'll keep saving for a Long John 7 and stick to my A99 and Moxon for the time being.
I just saw your comment. Very cool! I think you are referring to this antenna here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FLR-9 But it's use is for direction finding so it kind of adds to my point. If your signal is very directional, then that means the signal is very strong in that direction and NOT in the others. For CB/DX, do we want very narrow directionality? If you could design an antenna with unlimited physical limitations, would you build a 1000 foot long yagi with a 1 degree beamwidth?
But to be fair, for 11m, for an antenna to be very narrow, it would have to be like crazy big like 200+ feet. Even the MMM beam isn't big enough at 117 feet to be too directional yet. So in the physical limitations of the real world, I agree with you, no real antenna can be too big.
@@Z28videogates Those are them , but those pictures really don't do them justice . I'm on the east coast so if I was aiming for a very specific location , say the old South African station or Australia I might want something more narrow with a decent power rating , something my moxon just doesn't have .
Best thing to do is have a small beam to find the signal then swing the big gun on them.
it depends on the application, a beam antenna is for selective operation, you can op for shorter beams with larger beamwidth and less rejection but if you are surrounded by lots of traffic and noise which omnis do pick up, then you will appreciate the rejection and selectivity of a beam when working your station .
You're entitled to your opinion
Take into consideration how will it survive a windstorm or ice in the winter
The operators with 100' beams want to have narrow beam widths to reduce local interference. There are very narrow 2m antennas for earth-moon-earth communication. Two beams stacked broadside. Are easier to turn than 100'.
I wonder what antennas that are stackable or parallel can handle 10,30, or 100 thousand watts?
Good question. Figure two antennas would need first a power divider so the antennas themselves would only see half the total power. But it would require one heck of a power divider!
@@Z28videogates Now you know why 11 meter group don't do that.
The answer is yes
Stacked 50 footers, wow
Rhombic antennas are the best if you have the space
most dont know
Rhombic is not practical for 11 meters ..u would have to have multiple full wave length section ..it would take a huge amount of space to do it proper ...but it would definitely talk across the pond ..I prefure the quad over any other antenna period
@@JustinRuth-km4wz rhombic is the MOST practical! Just takes real estate.
Had a 15m Rhombic for a partial season, only problem was ice weight breakage in Wyoming.
WY7AC, +31 years of telegraphy.
@@lexheath8276 wrong
I prefure the fullwave quad.
There is no such thing as an antenna that is too big 😁
That is not a CB antenna. From its size I guess 430 MHZ Ham band.
Someone should explain the principles of directors on antenna's.....bad advice is easy to give, correct advice requires at least SOME knowledge.
Yes it can. Too much rejection ie Jogunn 8+8 Star I could not hear anything!!!
I guess it's what you want. Some people want that rejection and some don't. I guess the point of this video is that more directional (just blindly seeking more dB gain) isn't always the end all be all. 73.
Have you ever had a Yagi?
The idea for this video came from when I was using a 2 meter M2 2M12 antenna. That antenna is a Yagi for 2 meters with a boom length of about 20 feet. Figure the equivalent antenna for 11m would be about 110 feet. I noticed how directional it was. It would seem to me it would be much better to stack two shorter length beams vertically so the horizontal beamwidth is the same while the extra gain came from narrowing the vertical beamwidth instead. Most of the big HF stations stack beams vertically for my guess, this reason. Cheers!
@@Z28videogates 10 4