I’m looking for an antenna to use from my dinner time QTH (an airfield 630’ ASL with a great vista!) to run from my FT-60e for a bit of SOTA chasing from there. Also planning to do a few activations next year using it, so has to be reasonably portable. Home QTH is Swindon, so it’ll only be fairly local summits, Cleeve Hill etc. I’ve come across the Sandpiper Number 3 3 Element Delta Quad for 2m, which for the price seems plenty of gain for the money and portable too.
Any good/bad experiences with the antenna or Sandpiper in general??
I have sandpiper quad & the sotabeams 3ele & 5ele beams. I`m pleased with the performance of all of them. If operating 2m only, the quad may just eclipse the yagi for performance, however if you want to use 70cms as well, the quad wont like it at all, whereas the sotabeams beam will work reasonably well on the higher band. I think Robin GM7PKT uses the quad as well, or used to.
I must disagree the Delta Quad has miles more gain than the Sotabeam. I have both and have compared them. The Sotabeam is probably more convenient than the Delta, but not by much. The Delta Quad is a bit of a fiddle to make initially but worth it. I would avoid the dual band 2/70 Delta Quad as it is too flimsy for base station use and you cannot take it apart easily like the 2m version for portable use. Worth a look also is the Sandpiper three element portable Yagi which is quite robust and has good directivity for a three elephant. If I was choosing now this would be what I would buy. On the other hand the latest Sotabeam has dual band so that would be useful. The more the merrier on 70cms.
I would not worry too much about gain when choosing a beam for SOTA. You may get further with a high gain beam but you may also miss stations calling off your beam heading, that is why some contest stations use a smaller beam with a wide beam width to find people and a monster beam to work the DX.
It has pretty good gain, I’m sure Steve GW7AAV will also support this as yesterday (11/10/2010) when I was on Foel Fenlli (GW/NW-051) I went from an S1 to S9 just by turning it!
The construction is good too, instead of screwing into plastic or using ‘O’ Rings the elements simply unscrew using 3/8ths Inch studs. I simply painted mine in traffic light colour to order them for quick deployment on hills! The only criticism is that Sandpiper make the boom far to long, however I did contact them and they said it would be fine to cut it down! I cut mine down and left enough room behind the reflector element for the steel bracket and PVC Pipe.
In reply to 2E0XTL:
Many thanks Matt et all for your posts re the Sandpiper. Flicking through their antennas originally I had missed the 3 Element beam, but having seen it and read your comments, that is the way I will go I think. I’m guessing the gain would be in the range of 7.5 - 9db for the 3 Ele.?? Not too bothered about having a dual bander to be honest, but their 70cms beam for a similar price looks like a future purchase. I see what you mean about the boom length Matt, but I guess it gives the option of being made hand-holdable too for short periods.
In reply to M6HBS:
Hi Jonathan
I have got the delta quad and three element yagi. The three element yagi is best for very quick deployment and no need for a sota pole, it has an end for handheld use. The delta quad comes along more in the summer, it takes a little longer to set up, needs to go up the pole but with quoted gain of 11.1db it is VERY good! If I could only have one I would go for the delta quad.
In reply to MM0DHY:
I think the important bit for me at the moment Adrian is the quick deployment bit. At first it’ll be used from work at dinner times, for which I have an hour. So I guess I could be up and running with the 3 Ele in around 10 minutes or so and same again for take down giving me 40 minutes or so of use although I am still tempted by the Quad! It’s one of those ‘Pays yer money & takes yer choice’ situations!
In reply to MM0DHY:
Delta Quad now ordered! Decided to go for this one for now and hopefully get the more portable 3 Element next year when hopefully I’ll get some activations sorted out. At £35 each they’re a reasonable enough price to get both anyhow. I wouldn’t mind having a crack at making a 2 or 3 Element beam either, so that was another reason for the Quad choice. Hopefully catch a few of you on the air in a few weeks!
I used the Sandpiper in IO85XT as MM0CES/P. Worked all all over the UK and Caen in France easily heard but he had a huge pile up on the 2m UKAC Tuesday evening contest.
Folds down to almost nothing.
Shared the field with a trig point, an ROC Post (bunker) and a 2m repeater.
Left my 2 ele Innov Quad at home as no room in the car. That antenna can reach from Skegness to Aberdeen and south to the Channel Isles. Boom is 7 inches long but doesn’t come apart.
Don.
