| Author |
Message |
    
lugnut
| | Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2002 - 1:30 am: | 
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Do they make a pretty good beam ant.? Also, where can I get a tower? |
SSB 2103
| | Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2002 - 3:38 pm: |
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Lugnut they make the best ant there is. The only true Quad. I am going to put one up this summer. THis is my third. I had a four which I had no problem selling when thur with it, and I had a six which never lost market value. I am now going back to the four. It is one of the few ants that actually do what they are suppose to without heat. Very good on SSB, just be prepared for the world getting back to you. Take care
SSB2103 |
Scrapiron63
| | Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2002 - 5:10 pm: |
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Lugnut if you do try one of the Signal Engineering antennas, let us know how it does. I've read about them for a long time, but never saw one. I think they are made in California. They're a full wave quad type antenna, and advertise some high dbi, since Antron gave their antenna with the dbi figure, I'm always suspecious of that instead of DB gain. I don't believe they would take the ice storms we have where I live, I've saw too many moonrakers with the back end broke off. A regular vertical beam,, like the maco 104, has about 72' of elements for ice to build up on. A shooting star or moonraker has double that, 144' plus the quad wire on the back, that gets up to about 180'. The 4 quad signal eng. antenna would have around 290' of elements and wire. That would hold a lot of ice, before you even add the boom. Which I bet would happen in the first good ice storm, "BOOM" to the ground. Scrapiron |
Bigbob
| | Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2002 - 7:09 pm: |
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Dbi:decibels over isotropic;imaginary on paper antenna.Dbd:decibels over di-pole;real antenna. Dbi is approximately 2.6 db higher than dbd,hence you'll see dbi advertised,more impressive.Sometimes they just say db so you don't know what you're getting.Most good manufacturers will give the dbd figure if you ask for them. BIGBOB ON THE SIDE. |
Marconi
| | Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2002 - 8:19 pm: |
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Lugnut, every time I have had the chance to talk to anyone that claimed to be running a SE antenna they all had a very good signal and great audio. I have talked to two in California with 4's one in Hawaii with a 6 that really boomed in, a guy in Cal that had a Thunder 8 full scaled my TS-50, and a mobile from Cal that was strong.
Their docs leave a bit to be desired but the antennas TX great. If I had the head room I would get one for sure. If you order one ask them if they can ship it with SS nuts, bolts, and washers. I may try the Thunder anyway, as it does not require a rotor.
The guy I talked to with the Thunder 8, switched directions with me and he almost disappeared. It was one of those early evening deals where the skip rolled heavy but with little noise, so we worked the beams a while. We had a great time. Don't believe you can go wrong if you get the 4 or bigger. I wished they made a three element.
Marconi |
RCI2990
| | Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2002 - 9:07 pm: |
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Hmmmm ive had my moonraker 4 up for about 5 years and we have all kinds of ice and wind and they are up as good as ever!! But id like to try on of those SE 4 elements one day!!!!! |
bullet
| | Posted on Monday, March 04, 2002 - 7:14 pm: |
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signal beams are good beams,
thier not the end all beat all beam out of the box but thier damn good antennas.(a bit over priced in my opinion)
thier a full wavelength "speader feed" type quad beam tapped for both horizontal and vertical plains and set up in a diamond configuration. thier gain figures are more in line with reality than maco's.imo
i talk to 2 guys that own sig's one a lighting 4
the other a lighting 6 they both sound very loud..
i also have a new cb friend that runs a home brewed 6 element quad that sounds awesome as well.
ive built several quads myself from the 2 element to an 8 element beam. ive used several feeding systems and styles of loops. this design (sig's)is a conpromise design. gain/fb ratio/size/ease of construction. thiers more agressive styles that give more gain but thiers trade offs. size/shape/fb ratio suffers/band width and more weight.
im working now on a new beam that combines the best of both worlds. a quad style beam with higher
gain and a high f/b ratio like the yagi beams with good band width,easy to build and will handle
as much rf power as your coax will take. sounds
really hard and it was at first, then it hit me!
ive made 3 of these beams so far. a two element, a four element and now my six element. the two element tested out great,very good forward gain
and f/b ratio,had better ears than my 20'long four element quad and about the same gain. i'm still testing the 4 and building the 6 element beams(98% done). |
Taz
| | Posted on Monday, March 04, 2002 - 9:11 pm: |
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They are the best beams!!!!!!!
Im putting up a moonraker 4 here in a couple weeks and will be gettin out! |
bullet/151 southern Indiana
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 05, 2002 - 3:58 am: |
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if you can find someone that knows thier stuff
they can build you a better homebrew for alot less money.and if you have an old moonraker4
for a parts antenna id do it for 150.00 you travel.
my old 20' "opitimized" 4 element has more gain than a lightning 4, and my new beams are even better. my new style 2 element beam performs almost as well on tx as my old 4 element hi gain
quad and has better receive.
sig does not make anything out of the box to match an opitimized quad design.(sorry)
just like the stock versions of the cars they
run in bush/winston cup cant out perform the race
cars on a race track doing 180+.
we had freezing rain lastnite and my six and four element quads (on 6' building towers)both stand proud(simple trick of loading the spreaders takes care of this extra weight)it did surprised me a little as i thought it would droop at least a bit. |
bruce
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 05, 2002 - 4:58 pm: |
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TRY the ARRL ANTENNA HANDBOOK for ideas many libaries have them |
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