You will be doing everyone a favor producing even cheaper hexbeams.

Hexbeam owners seem to be like a swarm of bees on the air now. So many stations using them and they certainly seem to work well.

It would be nice if every station who owns a  G5RV, Windom/OCF, vertical or bits of wire all buy a hexbeam. The success of these antennas speak for themselves.

I also notice that stations with hexbeams get on the air more and seem to be working the bands calling CQ like real hams, and because they have an effective antenna they are working the world.

If you cant afford a Optibeam or steppir  antenna get a hexbeam, they so close in performance that it does not matter. Nobody can measure or see 1 or 2 db difference between the Hexbeam and bigger antennas.

The point is that if you own  a hexbeam you will have a better signal than most other stations that use bits of wire and verticals.

I think the Hexbeam  gets my vote for the antenna of the decade  award.  The hexbeam is becoming the G5RV of beams. The big difference is that the hexbeams puts out  a signal that leaves the G5RV sounding like a dummy load.

Someone should pass a law that if you a ham and  you dont have a beam up already, it should be law that you go out and put up a hexbeam or your license will be cancelled! Even if its only on a 30ft pole.

It's basically a half wave wire (just like a dipole) with the ends bent around so
maximum current is in the continuous vertical section.  It is fed off-center
(at the bottom) where the impedance is 50 ohms (with proper adjustment of
the dimensions.)

It might not look like a conventional OCFD, but if you moved the feedpoint up
to the center of the continuous vertical section, you'd have trouble explaining
why it isn't a vertical dipole with bent ends.

But there's no reason even to have radials, radials are usually on or in the ground and therefore are lossy, ie. part of the ground.  Get rid of the radials and have an effective antenna with a real 50Ω input.  If you don't want to believe me, go for it.  I have low angle radiation, no ground issues and a multi-band antenna.  And I don't string wires all over the ground, just in the air.  All I do is isolate the antenna from the coax and ground with a ferrite current choke and all the problems go away.  It's really kind of like an off center fed dipole that's been choked off the ground.

All I can say is try it.  It's cheap, easy and only requires one support and some PVC for a spreader.  But there are Luddites all over the place, including me, but I don't put up with inefficient low radiation resistance verticals.   There's no need.  Things really do progress as time goes on.

Dave
N3DT

Please give me the call sign of these engineers , individual you spoke with . I will contact them my self. But people will say any thing to make a sale !

A friend of mine had a TH6DX up at 50 feet plus a A3 we ran many on the air test. He running a KW . Me using 100 watts, He could NEVER beat my Quad on receive or transmit . He took them down and put a 3 el Steppir up and DXing changed to the better for him.

Sorry They said - HE Said - They Said - You Say !

Read "Array of Light "

Besides that traps are subject to water and spiders getting in them.

 Another friend of mine had hy-gain and crushcraft trapped beams and gave up on them and switched to Force 12, never to go back to trapped beam. Because of moisture and spiders in the traps.

Traps are a thing of the pass IMHO

End

73 JIM

Hi Chris ,

I would like to suggest to you and every one reading this thread. go and purchase "Array of Light" Third Edition , Straight talk about antennas and related subjects By Tom Schiller, N6BT

This book was written by former owner of Force 12 as most know .

When you read and study the material in this book  you  should be soon convinced that trapped antenna are NOT superior to trap less beams.

My other point to readers here is this . What do contest stations use for beams ? If trapped beams were so good . Every contest stations would use them instead of mono band beams and mono band  beam stacks. Just think , they could have just one tower and save a lot of money!

On the new rage of of dxing , I will point out go and look at  DX Leaderboards , What beams and antennas are the top leaders using at their stations ?

 Gain is Gain bottom line . No one here will convince me that a wide spaced optimized tri band  yagi beam as my C-31XR with 14.5 dbi gain will be beat out by some little old  trapped beams, Steppir beams , or Quads for that matter. I have tested many many antenna. Talked to many contest station owners as well as professional installer. Have done many on the air test against Quads , trapped beams , motorized beams. And owned some.

Chris , Why do you think I own a Force 12 C-31XR ?

Gain is Gain and trapless beam  is less worry and less lots of troubles.

Buy what you can afford and use what is best for your location . But don't believe a trapped beam is better than a Force 12 !

73 JIM

 

I can't answer your questions.  Perhaps someone else here could.  One thing that separates this antenna to the Steppir is that there are ten elements.  So the antenna is optimized with proper element spacing for each band.  I don't know if you picked that up.  AND there would be no interactions between the elements as all the inactive elements could be fully retracted.  So in theory this design would perform better than a monobander since a monobander is only resonant at one frequency.

73,
Jonathan W6GX

Here's a link to the 'no compromise' antenna if one has enough dough.  Apart from the mechanical complexity I don't see any compromises in terms of electrical performance.

http://www.ultrabeam.it/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=72&Itemid=72&lang=en

UB-1040 DX Features :

-       Frequency Range                                                                                                                      7 - 30 Mhz      
-       8 elements yagi    10–12-15 meters
-       6 elements yagi    17-20 meters
-       4 elements yagi    30-40 meters
-       Gain 10-12-15 (dBd)    10,9 – (dBi 13.15)
-       Gain 17-20 ( dBd)    9,3 – (dBi 11,45)
-       Gain 30-40 (dBd)    8 – (dBi 10,15)
-       F/B ratio (dB)    23-25
-       Power (PeP)    3500 watt
-       Longest elements    21,5 meter
-       Boom length    18 meter
-       Boom    trellis aluminum square  200x200 mm.
-       Max wind-area    4,3
-       Rotating radius        14,86 meters
-       Mast diameter     100 mm.
-       Weight    185 Kg.
-       Controller    Included

73,
Jonathan W6GX

The ultimate no trapped multi band antenna, and I own it so I know what I speak of. 

I have a 3 element Steppir antenna.  I have also had a wilson SY-2, a mosely something or other and a MA5B  among others and the 3 element Steppir is the best.  it is a full sized  3 element bean on 10/12/15/17/20 m and a 4 ele beam on 6 m. ( I have the stinger) I is good on both the high end and low end of any band as it changes size to match the frequencies. Yes I tried to get a force 12 originally but could never gt  an a=answer to my call or email, optibeam was too expensive  so I got the steppir, used.  The company supports me with maintenance items just as if I bought it from them.  Nice folks, the antenna works and say hi to them if you see them at a ham convention.

Yea, they are that good, no more traps or fixed elements length's for me. The Steppir tunes continuously from  bottom of 6 meters to the top of 20 meters, including CAP and MARS frequencies, and now they make  all sorts of super antennas using the stepper technology.

How do you know it's a great deal? How long have you had one in the air? Are the exposed aluminum parts anodized after they were sheared, formed, drilled or punched? Is the stainless from Japan, Germany, the U.S. or China? Is it even stainless? Is the fiberglass U/V inhibited? Is the fiberglass coated with gelcoat? Is the plastic Delrin or Nylon or something else? Are there places where dissimilar metals will eat each other? What kind of coax was used for the feedline parts and was it waterproofed?

You already admitted you don't know the answers to all that because you've never touched one and have no experience with one. And yet in the last week you've posted a slew of posts in reference to how great this antenna is.

It might be. But without a track record like the competition, there's no way to judge, so whoever buys it for less takes all those chances. With an antenna that's been out for years to thousands of customers, pick ANY brand, there's been feedback, designs have been improved, engineering choices changed and product improvement ensues. You buy one of those antennas today, you get a better antenna than the first antenna they made.

Hear me. I'm not saying a thing about if this antenna is good or bad. I'm saying it's a bit premature to say it's a great deal when it might be a real toad that falls apart in a dozen different ways. It also might be a spectacular deal and the best hex beam antenna in the world. But we don't know that yet.

Low price tag seldom = the best. If that's the only criteria you recommend a new product with no track record on, you're being disingenuous at minimum.

I also hope it's the lowest price, best hex beam on the market and I wish NA4RR well in his efforts to penetrate a low margin market with a lot of competition. It's very difficult to be long term competitive and undercut your next lowest competitor by 30%,  yet still put out a high quality product. In fact it's a very difficult thing to do all that and actually make a profit. Without a profit, Customer Support turns into Customer No Support rather too soon.

I'll look him up at Hamcation and see for myself.

I looked at the NA4RR webpage and the antenna looks really nice. I wish him the best in the competitive world of hex beams. Another top notch offering can only help improve the overall quality of hex beams in general and keep the cost in line for all of us. But if NA4RR can get market share only by negatively blasting the competition I want nothing to do with him.

KA7NIQ, you are not helping NA4RR with your negative comments leveled at established well reviewed products.

73,
Mike K2MK

I built my own hex beam, but I gotta say, the build of the Traffie is second to none. It's really a first rate build and very well thought out.