Hi rich,

The way I heard the story is  that the fellow from Erie PA  who made  them
in the '70's and 80's   died and  his widow  sold the design to  Tom VE3
something in Ontario.  The construction is supposed to be vastly improved
over the  earlier ones.

The plastic parts are supposed to be Lexan.  The tubing is  good quality and
not  lawn chair  aluminum like  some antennas.  The copper wire in the
reflector is flex-weave.   I don't know if the tuning spokes are done
differntly than before, but  I have not had any problems  in 13 months
including ice, snow, and some serious winds.

Here is the link.  The prices are in Canadian dollars.    This is not the
antenna I want to spend the rest of my life using, but  at this time it fits
my needs  just fine.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/tgmc/
Also a number of reviews for the various TGM antennas and the Butternut are
on  eham.
73 Steve KW3A

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Fiorello" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 3:05 PM
Subject: mini-quad


> Hi Steve;
> I had one too in the late 80's and seem to remember there were lots of
> problems but much has happened since then.  As for the mini-quad, is this
> the same old mini-quad that was out in the mid 1980's or something new and
> improved?  I had the old miniquad and any good storm and you could count
on
> losing one little tuning spike which made at least one band useless.
> I'm curious as to details.
> Rich
>
>
>