Garden Beam

[KF7ITG]

In April 2013 issue of QST I read an interesting article about an antenna called the Garden Beam. I have searched the Internet for any detailed reference material with little luck. My question is if I wanted to replicate the Garden Beam or a single 20 meter band variant are there any detailed plans floating around?

73s
KF7ITG

[AE5QB]

Remember, the April issue traditionally has an April Fools day joke it.  If I recall it even states that there is a practical joke in the issue and challenges readers to find it.  Perhaps that is it.  Anyone have knowledge of a 20 meter beam working well when mounted 3 feet off the ground?  I suspect not but I could be wrong.

[KF7ITG]

If so, they sure went to quite a bit of trouble to pull it off ..... Web site and all not to mention the photoshop work involved. As I read it it's more of a directional vertical with suspended radials???
If it is a April Fools joke it was well thought out and executed even better. ;-)

73s
KF7ITG

[KP4UFO]

HERE IS THE INFO ABOUT THE GARDEN BEAN ANTENNA.

http://www.gardenbeam.com/en/

[KF7ITG]

Yes I have been to their site. You notice they don't sell them nor do they supply enough 411 to build one. Is it even real? The vertical with suspended radials is real but can you line up three in a row and they become directional?
The Garden Beam would be akin to cold fusion or perpetual motion. Maybe that's the reason there is so little real info??

[KP4UFO]

YES.......  IS JUST MATHEMATICS............ YOU CAN USE VERTICALS OR DIPOLES IF YOU DO TE MATHEMATICS... WILL WORK PERFECT.

[KF7ITG]

OH .... You mean like ummmmm 4X6


73s
KF7ITG

[KP4UFO]

  JA JA JA JA THAT A GOOD ONE BUT!!!!!!!!!! NOP.........

[KA5N]

An old April Fool's joke in QST  back in the 1960's  Noted that all antennas above ground
had an image antenna the same depth below ground as it's height above ground.  So the
author said that instead of haveing to build something to support an antenna high in the air
you could just bury the antenna and the image antenna formed above ground would do all the
radiating.  The author was one Larsen  E. Rapp who supplied April Fool articles for several
years.  He also had another April Fool story about an extremely stable VFO,  so stable in
fact that you could QSY and the VFO would stay on the original set frequency long enough
for you to make a lengthly final.  For some reason Rapp and his inventions were dropped
from QST (because, I heard, hams were taking the stories seriously and were dissapointed
when the gadgets didn't work.)   Beauty is only skin deep, dumb goes all the way to the bone.

Allen  KA5N

[W1VT]

You can find detailed plans for building a mono-band 20 meter version on this page

http://www.arrl.org/qst-in-depth

or download the file directly from this link
http://www.arrl.org/files/file/QST%20Binaries/Apr2013/QS0413Wallner.zip

It is an very interesting alternative for hams with height limitations—while I’d rather have a rotatable dipole at 35 feet—this is for someone who can’t do that!

The Zip file also contains EZNEC files of the antenna.

Zack W1VT

[K4SAV]

I remember seeing pictures of that antenna used by one of the DXpeditions.  I thought that was a great idea for a DXpedition.  It's essentially three phased verticals, each vertical element has two radials, and the whole thing is mounted on a boom so that it can be rotated.   Put that over salt water at low heights and you have a killer antenna.  Put it over dirt at low heights and it can be easily be beaten by a dipole.

Jerry, K4SAV

[WB6BYU]

Nothing foolish or magical about it.  It uses quarter wave verticals with
two radials for the yagi elements - very much like the old Gizmotchy
CB antennas:

http://gizmotchy.com/

(But hopefully with more realistic gain numbers.)

The advantage is that it doesn't rely on height above ground to get low angle
radiation - though good ground conductivity is important.  But for a DXpedition
from a beach they would be great.  Just like a regular yagi you can build
them with any number of elements.

If you can't find a set of dimensions, it wouldn't be difficult to come up with
a set by modeling, starting with any standard yagi design.

[W6TGE]

They gave the element lengths and said the charts did show the element spacing. I have read this several times and have not seen the element spacing.

[WB6BYU]

I just looked at the article and I agree, the spacing was not included in Table 1.

It should be included in the .zip file of additional data available on the ARRL web site
page that W1VT linked to.