Hi Harry

Many years ago scaled a quad from the RSGB handbook from 1296 to 432MHz.
It used "round" elements of flat aluminium about 15mm wide for parasitic
elements and a copper piece for the DE. All were directly bolted to the
boom (30mm dia Aluminium pipe) with no insulator.

The DE was fed direct connect balun style with the coax shield soldered
at the element/boom point, then crossing to the other side of the circle
and splitting inner/shield to each side of the element.

Worked well! (Was 23 elements I think)

I would say yes to the length question, but I dont have a handle on how
critical..

I also made a few circular/helix antennas which are for less critical
dimension wise. That might be another option for DF mode...

Cheers Bob VK2YQA

Harry H wrote:
I am wondering if its possible to build a 6 element "round" quad antenna,
that is the elements are circular instead of square.
I want to use it for DFing and have the centre frequency of 438 mhz.
I will be mounting the elements on an insulator above the boom, will the
boom have to be non conductive?
I intend to use 1/8" alloy wire for rigidity, and make the element mounts
out of insulating material so they can be slid along the boom, will the
frequency to wire diameter ratio have any effect on the length of each
element?

73
HarryH