HF Mini-Beam - Created by G4ZU. Self-Build or adapt for your own use | Ham Radio 

Interesting ideas with this antenna. It caught my attention as my father built a 2 ele mini beam when I was a child. It had some loading coils on the ends of the elements with some spikes around the coils and remember him describing them as inductors. Never seen the design since and of course it’s too late now to be able to ask him about the antenna. Good memories of my father and his radio equipment, still got some bits of equipment he made.

Great idea to use a stub to short a trap when it's not wanted, I will add that to my bag of antenna tricks for sure. Thanks for this and for sharing a bit of its history.

Thanks for the update on LU5FR using the antenna. He does have some information about it on his site but it's in Spanish and unfortunately, I don't speak any Spanish.

Exceptional. I had not seen this one. Many thanks Peter! 73

Hi Peter ....it's Ken EA5/G4VZV. Thanks for an informative video which i fully understood. This would be an easy anyenna to make for sure.Always interesting to watch your videos. Thanks Peter ....de G4VZV

Appreciate your knowledge and your effort to share with us. Many including myself lack some basics. Would love to see a series that you go through basics of HAM radio as you discovered yourself. Keep up the good work and 73 VA7AYG

THANKE YOU🙏from S50SI

Thanks Peter, another interesting concept, perhaps by linear loading it could be shortened some more.

G4ZU was a génius for the antenna, thank's for survival it. F4GMS

65 years and the patent is still valid? I thought patents only lasted 20 years? I'm surprised no one has made a commercial version of this.

While very informative & interesting, for me at least, the most "enlightening" point in ur video was just the thought of using an open-wire feeder for a directional antenna (not necessarily just for a doublet)! Yes, a very simple concept, but still, something I'd never considered until now, (thanks to u)! de WA4ELW in TN 🇺🇸😀

It would be nice if someone could come up with complete plans for this antenna😅

Really interesting, open feeder on a yagi .

My real question is/ are we transmitting over flat ground or over a sphere.. when we talk in skip conditions

Peter, I have a crazy aerial story for you. There is a Russian YL who has done videos on here of her operating with aerials lying on the ground or buried. I had put it down to "crazy Russian pranksters", but I was having my lunch a few days ago and gave it a go. I cut 6m of wire, attached it to a 9:1 unun, added about four feet of coax and pushed it out the window. I laid the wire over the slabs and grass. Antenna analyser was showing under 3:1 from 10-30 MHz but a big dip right in the 12m band. So I plugged it straight into the radio, went on FT8 and could see stuff. Clicked on the first CQ and it was a JA8. He gave me a -18 report. Weak, but we made the contact. How is this possible? The noise floor was really low too. I was only running 10w. More experimentation required. I can see this ending up in the RAOTA magazine at some point. I am bemused by this experience. GM4SVM

Pretty interesting. Have you, or are you familiar with anyone who has, built one and measured the actual gain on the various bands? That would certainly settle any argument about how different the performance is from a "true" full size yagi, and whether it performs similarly to a 5-el beam on 10m

Do you have any links to webpages with a good diagram of the antenna Peter? I've looked on LU5FR's webpage but the text is in Spanish and the diagrams are a scan from a very old book and are not very clear. Would be really helpful if you did. I think this might actually be a beam for 20/15/10m that could fit in my little garden. 73s

It's ok you can say it...... it will also cover the 11m band also. There are many of us out here. We also like your videos. Sorry

Comment for the algorithm.