WB0SMX

  Hex Beam Installation Filed in Antennas, on May.18, 2017 After giving up on my 35 year old Cushcraft A4, I ordered a Hex Beam from NA4RR.     Trap Dipole, VHF and UHF antennas installed I Settled on this beam after reading many reviews and getting recommendations from friends. I like the simple, no-trap design, and the coverage of the WARC bands. While a traditional tribander might give a little more gain, I think the tradeoffs are worth it. I ordered the beam, and received a shipping notice the next day. It would take approximately 1 week to arrive from Florida to Arizona. So we loaded up the truck and headed to the mountains to cool off for a few days. After returning to Mesa, the beam arrived a couple of days later, one day past the original estimate provided by UPS. It arrived in two packages, one with the fiberglass supports and center mast, and one with hardware, wires and the baseplate. Since it had arrived at dusk, we had to wait until the next morning to beg

  Cushcraft A4 Repair (Fail!) Filed in Antennas on May.18, 2017 Shortly after I had repaired my Cushcraft A4 tribander beam the last time, I noticed that it appeared to have a loose connection somewhere. Especially when the wind was blowing, I would hear something that sounded a little like static crashes, or pops in the receiver. This was especially noticeable on 20 meters, but was apparent on all bands.   A4 coming down the tower About a year ago, I climbed up and removed the short coax that made up the balun, which connected to the long feedline on one end, and the beam on the other. It was very weather beaten, and looked to have poor connections at the antenna end.   Bad coax connections After examining the coax, I decided to just build a new one. This just involved installing some terminal ends on one end of a new piece of coax, and a PL-259 connector with a barrel at the other end.   New Coax Balun cable After building and testing the balun in the shop, I climbed bac