Three years ago I tossed together a quick and dirty 6m Moxon. It worked well, but was really rough in some ways. This was one of my "walker" specials.
This same antenna was/is 100% the metal parts of aluminum crutches and a walker. I went back over it refining the look, and the dimensions.
While it definitely still looks like a homebrew, it's sharper and less weight.
When I first produced this antenna the bandwidth was as good as expected, with low SWR across the band except in the lowest SSB DX portion where it rose to near 2.0:1. This was not what I wanted. I knew it would have to change. I made contacts in spite of the unhappy SWR.
Once I had cleaned it up I found that the antenna stubbornly held onto a 2:1 SWR at 50 Mhz.
This time I read some more and decided I would add a twist that should lower the resonance of the reflector from somewhere above 54 Mhz as it was to a "better place".
I took my hacksaw and directly in the middle of the reflector I cut it in half. I then added a hairpin match (7.5" x 2"), across that gap and checked my antenna again. Why did I choose those dimensions? Because that's the length of the 1/16" aluminum rod I had on hand without cutting a new piece up. My results:
That extra boom on the front I am going to trim off.
Where is X=0? 49.700 Mhz. No, I'm not going to twiddle with it. Perfect is not the enemy of good at this QTH.
This same antenna was/is 100% the metal parts of aluminum crutches and a walker. I went back over it refining the look, and the dimensions.
While it definitely still looks like a homebrew, it's sharper and less weight.
When I first produced this antenna the bandwidth was as good as expected, with low SWR across the band except in the lowest SSB DX portion where it rose to near 2.0:1. This was not what I wanted. I knew it would have to change. I made contacts in spite of the unhappy SWR.
Once I had cleaned it up I found that the antenna stubbornly held onto a 2:1 SWR at 50 Mhz.
This time I read some more and decided I would add a twist that should lower the resonance of the reflector from somewhere above 54 Mhz as it was to a "better place".
I took my hacksaw and directly in the middle of the reflector I cut it in half. I then added a hairpin match (7.5" x 2"), across that gap and checked my antenna again. Why did I choose those dimensions? Because that's the length of the 1/16" aluminum rod I had on hand without cutting a new piece up. My results:
That extra boom on the front I am going to trim off.
Where is X=0? 49.700 Mhz. No, I'm not going to twiddle with it. Perfect is not the enemy of good at this QTH.
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