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Hex Beams

RatsoW8

RatsoW8

Supporting Member, W9WDX ARC Member - WD8T
Nov 3, 2009
3,100
1,411
273
West Central Michigan
I should be closing on a house in the next 30 days that will finally get me out of the restrictive community I've been living in for 9 years. I've been operating with a low wire hidden in the trees all this time. Anyway, at the new ham shack, I mean home...I've got a large semi wooded lot with plenty of room for antennas and NO restrictions on what I can put up except what my budget will tolerate.

I can get my dipoles up to about 60' in the existing trees on the 85' x 185' lot but, I don't think I want another tower like I had when I lived in Indiana so I've been looking for lightweight directional antenna options that I can put up without the need for a tower. The hex beams see to fit the bill. One in particular has my attention. It's built by K5BOB and the kit looks super simple to assemble and looks to be one of the lightest hex beams out there. His small hex for 10/6 meters only weighs 6 lbs. I just emailed him for the weight of the three band version which I would get in 20/17/15 meters. He has assembly videos on you-tube and the construction of the antennas looks to be sturdy and one of the best things is no metal on the antenna.

I'm curious to see if anyone here is using a hex and how you have it mounted. I want to be able to put it up on a telescoping mast or pipe arrangement of some sort with a lightweight rotor.





 

Ratso I have never used one, but have researched them and had many QSO on the bands with ops using the Hex and it does work.

One contact was in Oregan and I am in Florida, on 20 meters using 100 watts.

He was kind enough to demonstrate the f/b and it was impressive,5-7 when he was beaming to my QTH and when he got the hex turned around it went to 3-4 so pretty decent f/b and such a small footprint.

I think there is a yahoo group for hex beams might be worth looking into.
 
I have a 6 band one from MW0JZE here in the UK. It is mounted directly into my Kenpro K400RC rotator which was later sold as the Yaesu G400 when Yaesu bought Kenpro and its a lightweight rotatr. It is attached to the top section of my Hilomast NC11 11 metre/36ft telescopic pneumatic mast.

It has spent most of its time up in the air including in the strong 70MPH gales we had in winter and spring with nothing more than three lightweight guys and other than the rotator slowly rotating 30/40 degrees or so overnight because its not braked, there's not been any issue.
 
I've talked to a lot of stations on the air that were using them. I would put one up here if I had the space. They really are pretty neat antennas.
 
I have the space just not sure if I want to put up a tower or guyed mast here. I must be getting old when I'd rather have a clear back yard than a tower..lol I'll figure it out.

Heavy - the 2 band is 6/10 meters and that's tempting but I like to get into the pileups on 20 meters too much. I also don't use 6 at all and well 10 meters is 10 meters.

Maybe I'll build a lightweight 20 meter moxon.
 
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