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| DL1YC Moxon |
I had a very nice contact on 17 meters yesterday with Jan DL1YC. It was a rare Moxon-to-Moxon contact, with homebrew 17 meter Moxons on either end. Jan's is a bit cooler than mine: His is flat, without the "blownout umbrella" support that we see in mine (below) and in the Hex Beams. Jans told me that he achieved this flatness by starting out with very long telescoping fishing poles -- he discarded the the thin portions of the pole and used only the more rigid pieces. (I used 16 foot, 5 piece Shakespeare Wonderpoles from Amazon.) I think he also used thin wire for the elements. The crossbar that you see in the picture above is there to support a balun at the feed point -- without the cross bar the balun and the feedline would cause the balun to droop.
I couldn't resist a little front to back testing. Jan's antenna does not have a rotator -- he used the "Armstrong" method of antenna pointing. I didn't want to make him go outside to spin the thing around by hand, so I just turned mine and asked him to take note of the difference front to back. He saw 3 S units. 18 db. Not bad.
Jan said his antenna weighs about 8 pounds -- mine is very similar at 9 pounds. Jan expressed some concern about UV deterioration of the fishing pole fiberglass. Mine has been up there three years without any problems.
Like me, Jan had considered "nesting" an element for another ban (perhaps 20 or 12) but -- like me-- had concluded that this would be too difficult.
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| N2CQR Moxon |
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