Dear friends,
If you are interested, please find a brief description of my self-built SOTA YAGI here on my blog. It weighs less than 500 gramms and measures around 65 cm when disassembled.
73 de Alfred
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I think the work and ideas of DK7ZB are fantastic - and I have already built a few antennas according to his design… and I have taken over many great ideas from the reflector here…
From EA3BV I have the idea of using the arm on the boom to increase stability … and from you I will take over the idea of connecting walking sticks together as a mast … and integrating the matching coil as a free element in the coax has some charm.
I love this exchange!
73 Armin
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Alfred,
It is a right idea the possibility of separate the elementes through screwing and the walking sticks, glad to see yagis homebrew in the summits!!
Armin,
thanks for your support. The 4 elem / 1m boom yagi is a outstanding between performance/price/lightweight.
DK7ZB website is a amazing ideas source. I am thinking always about a new yagi, hihi.
73 from Barcelona.
Jon EA3BV
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I do, too. 
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It is. I have built about 4 antennas from his designs as of late while on days off from work. All tuned very well without any adjusting.
Malen
VE6VID
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Alfred, nice work done here! I used to carry a commercial 5-el for 2 m with me. The boom I used as walking stick. One day I forgot the boom in my car…
So what to do? The feeder is a perfectly matched folded dipole. Since then I operate it solely, just handheld saving a lot of luggage (You are young and strong, hi). It is as good as a HB9CV and I don’t see any disadvantage. That’s the reason I climb a summit… In my modest opinion, catching multiple reflections by varying position (not only rotation, real 3D moving) beats out a highly directional antenna on a mast in most cases, when my location is in a valley or a lower summit. When I’m on a high summit surpassing wide surroundings - yagi is just for suppressing QRM from the back but this was never an issue on 2m sota for me. Using my 11-el only in contest…
cu 73 Martin OE3VBU
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Dear Martin @OE3VBU, thanks for your feedback! Maybe I hear you tomorrow during the Vienna SOTA day! 73 de Alfred
I still do… well if you can call the extremely rare Sotabeams SB5 commercial. This is based on the design by Martin DK7ZB. I find the extra gain most useful when operating from Scotland (IO85 / IO86) and my nearest reliable chaser is Don G0RQL in Devon (IO70).
Well done on producing an excellent antenna Alfred. It will be interesting to see what you can work with it from the summits.
73, Gerald G4OIG
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So for my location near Vienna I have to find some reliable chasers from Berlin, Milano or Belgrade, hi
I love to operate 2 m. But DX QSOs are rare. Not much traffic on this band off contest. I’m looking forward to working all Europe from a +3000m summit one day. I will inform You just in case…
Agreeing on your comment, and after today’s activity (Three QSOs running on the same FM-QRG) I honestly missed a directional antenna with good front-to-back ratio.
On the other hand, for me personally I found the perfect QSOs per lbs ratio with my folded dipole on a 2 m handy and my KX1 with wire ant. That works for me as in central Europe I always find some stns in a ~150 km radius. And if not - I switch to 40 m.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
73 Martin, OE3VBU
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