20 Meter Mono Band Hexbeam vs 20 Meter Mono Band Dipole at 35 Feet 

Thank you, Mark, for your kind words. I love this hobby and even more than audio but I know most of my subscribers are interested in audio equipment. This is my first genuine store bought antenna, besides little antennas like mobile whips, etc and I am very pleased with it. I had to pull the antenna off about a month ago and do some minor repair on it as some of the mounting screws were coming lose from being pounded by the wind and I put it back up without the 4 foot piece of mast between the antenna and rotor making it much stronger with no decrease in performance I can tell. 73 and stay safe during this terrible virus.

I think you will enjoy 20M and amazing things can be done with a dipole on that band. Hope to hear you on the air. I generally work around the center of the band, 14.250 MHz or sometimes at the very bottom at 14.156 MHz when I talk with my friend, KE0SSP in Iowa. 73 WA4QGA

They are unique looking and are described in several different ways. I think my wife even likes it more than the dipole...

I commented too soon I suppose, AMAZING setup.

1500 watts US Amateur Transmitter Power Limits At all times, transmitter power must be the minimum necessary to carry out the desired communications. Unless otherwise noted, the maximum power output is 1500 watts PEP. Novice/Technicians are limited to 200 watts PEP on HF bands.

Every 1/2 wavelength, or whole number (integer) multiple thereafter, the impedance at the load (the antenna) is repeated at the end of the coax in your shack for a monoband antenna. If the "antenna" (not the antenna "system" which consists of the antenna and the length of coax) were to be a perfect 50+J0 impedance, (dummy load) then the length of the coax would not matter but in the case of a dipole, which is not 50 ohms with zero reactance, the actual complex impedance of the actual "antenna", not the coax-antenna-system, can be read at the end of the coax if the length of the coax is a multiple of a 1/2 wavelength of coax. With this said, the length of the coax for 1/2 wavelength is the free space wavelength at the measured frequency multiplied by the velocity factor of the coax. For the old style coax the Vp is usually 0.66 and for the newer style foam dielectric coax it is something like 0.88 so, the length for a wave length, or half wavelength, of coax is always less then the free space wavelength. Hope this helps.

The I.D. of the largest tubing is 1 inch (O.D. = 1 1/8 inch. The center insulating rod is solid fiberglass.

Do you remember how long the center fiberglass rod was in the Dipole? I found one 23 inches at 1 “ OD .. Thought it should be longer. Thanks again! N4EVG

@@j.r.n4evg111 The one in mine is probably no longer than 8-10 inches. Just 3-4 inches into each side of the dipole is sufficient with an inch or so spacing in the middle. I understand the concern about rigidity and insulation but it seems much less is needed of the insulating rod than we tend to think. Even at 1000 watts of RF, the voltage at the feed point of the dipole is only around 223 volts RMS or 316 volts peak.

The Hexbeam is essentially a 2 element Yagi, that is bent into a "W" shape. An ordinary 2 element Yagi would also perform slightly better than the Hexbeam. Quads and Yagis have essentially the same gain.

That is how far it is from my basement to the top of the tower + or - a few feet so at that time, since it was a monoband dipole, it seemed like a good idea so I could, as best as possible, read the accurate complex impedance of the actual antenna. I don't worry too much about it now with the hexbeam which seriously outperforms the dipole., especially front-to-back. The loss in good coax like the LMR-400 is pretty insignificant at HF. Here is a link to a loss calculator where you can select any coax, length and frequency. LMR400 at 200 feet is about 0.9 dB. kv5r.com/ham-radio/coax-loss-calculator/ 73

It does in SSB. The 4CX1000A home brew amp will deliver a full 2KW PEP output. Average output 1600 watts. This is true. I don't have confidence it could handle a full KW of high level modulated AM but I am not going to do that to it. I am working right now on my AM transmitter and hope to have it on in the next week or so.

Don, Well that is sure not good to hear. So far mine has been performing beyond my expectations. I find the the directivity of the one I have up amazing. I do get concerned when I see these large dove hanging onto the wires. I think it is OK for them to sit on the PVC. What do you think caused yours to burn thru the Dacron cord?

@@ElPasoTubeAmps RF......The claim is weather and moisture do not effect the SWR.... It has to... Bad part..it's mounted on a tower 50+ft up...

I am screwed!

@@ElPasoTubeAmps I'm just sick about it

@@donalddavis581 Absolutely, I would be upset also. I am really sorry to hear it failed so soon. I would hope it would last at least five years - or more... do you think it is the brand of hexbeam? Is this more common than we think? They do seem kind of fragile but I have not heard of them breaking so soon. Is it broke on just one band? I am assuming you have a multi-band hexbeam. Mine is mono band - just 20M. My problem is my rotor is too large to fit inside the tower (to use a telescoping pole at the top of the tower to mount the antenna on to bring it up and down into reach from the top of the tower) so the rotor has to be connected to the very top of the tower. Then, the hexbeam is mounted on a 4 foot pole so it makes it impossible to reach the actual center plate once installed. I do have a gin pole to lift it into place while my friend is at the top of the tower and can just guide it in the rotor clamp while I manage it from the ground on a cable, but removing it is going to be difficult as there is no way, that I have thought of so far, to attach the hook from the gin pole to the antenna at any point that can be reached. I don't know what I am going to do when I have to take it down for repair. A crank up tower or lean-over tower is obviously one type of solution but the lean-over will not work because of surrounding obstructions and spending $$$$ on a crank up tower is not going to work either. My situation is a brute-force issue to remove it. Brute force removing (lifting it out of the rotor clamp) the dipole wasn't too hard but this hexbeam is much larger and so much more awkward it is just simply going to be dropped to the ground once pulled out of the rotor clamp... putting it back in is OK because of the gin pole but there is no way, that I have thought of yet, to hook it on to the gin pole hook to lift if out of the rotor. Any suggestions are welcome from anyone - besides the hinged or crank up tower solution...

That's a fair and good question. I am generally only interested in 20M and I wasn't actually confident it would work as well as it did. I also read that mono band hexbeams had a little more gain than multi band ones. Except that I have to take it off the tower, adding bands is simply adding the predetermined lengths of wire and string and attaching them to the center post which is where the feed points are. The cost to add bands, homebrew style, couldn't cost over $3-4 for the required wire and string. I think this design really lends itself to homebrewing... Adding more bands may happen in a future project.