One thing that I have noticed about hex beams is that they are never used by
the mainstream DX and/or contest crowd.  This leads me to believe that there
is something inherent about the basic design that prevents the antennas from
being as high performance as the standard long boom monobanders.  With the
exception of SteppIrs, the DX and contest gurus don't even use multi-band
yagis; their stations are always built with monoband yagis, again with the
exception of SteppIrs.  The reason that a sizeable fraction of this crowd
use SteppIrs is because the SteppIr yagi is always a mono-bander because the
elements are continually adjusted to give a perfectly flat SWR on the
frequency being used.  The standard multi-band yagi uses different
combinations of their elements for different bands.  However, the elements
not being used on a particular band are physically still present, unlike the
SteppIr.

 

I wonder if anyone on the list has any personal experience with the use of
the hex beam by the ultra-high performance crowd.  If any of the upper crust
guys are using hex beams, I haven't run into any of them yet.  As well as I
do with my DB-36, I can't hold a candle to the big boys.  Of course, when
Stan has installed the remote access subsystem at his Florida farm complex,
I will be able use it instead of relying on my own station here in Phoenix.
Boy is that going to be fun!

 

 

Alan - N7MIT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alan R. Downing

Phoenix, AZ