Hey Ralph,

If you have access to an MFJ 259 type antenna analyzer with the 440 band
included, it makes it a piece of cake to get a match. What I did was
pull out the first director and laid it on top of the wooden boom and
moved it forward until I achieved the lowest SWR, which was 1.2:1.
Never did alter the size of the driven loop. May screw up the patter or
efficiency, but I don't have a good way to measure either, so I didn't
give much of a hoot...just wanted to make the radio happy so it pumps
out full power

Thanks for the words of encouragement...think I'll try a 222 version...

Scott
N0EDV


Ralph Mowery wrote:

"Scott" wrote in message
...

Might be interesting to someone out there....

I built a copy of the 432 Quagi (8 elements) that appeared in the 1988
ARRL Antenna Book. It has a "claimed" gain of 13 dBi (which, if I
remember right, is 10.8 dBd).

I didn't lament over getting all the elements within 1/128" of an inch
and it came out OK. The only place I needed to deviate fairly
significantly is that I needed to move the first director about 3"
forward of the original design to get a better match. I have no idea
what this will do to the radiation pattern. As designed, mine had a
best SWR of 2:1, causing the solid state final in the Yaesu 857 to start
shutting down such that I was getting about 6 or 7 Watts out instead of
20. Moving the first director forward as noted got the SWR to 1.2:1.
Much as I would expect since a quad element at resonance is about 60
Ohms I believe. Anyhow...

Measured it on the antenna range today at our VHF group's
(http://www.nlrs.org) annual get-together. My antenna came in with a
9.6 dBd gain. I can live with that! It was only 0.3 dB below the
reference antenna, an 11 element Yagi. Seems to have a very sharp

pattern!

Anybody have experience with this type antenna? I was impressed enough
to think about giving the 222 version a try...

Scott
N0EDV


I built a 220 version out of a piece of the gray electrical conduit (suspose
to be more UV resistant than the PVC ) , used stainless steel welding rods
for the director elements. It worked out very well for me. I compaired it
to the 11 element CC dummy load antenna and it was much beter. I then built
2 of the 440 versions and never did get the swr to where I wanted it. Think
I gave up on them and went to a K1FO type 22 element yagi.