Hello,
Sometimes I want to chase. At home, I have a horizontal deltaloop 80m. It’s great on the lower bands but mediocre above 20m. I wanted a beam antenna, not so big, not so expensive and multiband. After looking at the designs, I went for hexbeam. The commercial models are way too expensive for what I do, and because I like to build things more than using them, I decided to make one “from scraps”.
This thread will be a journal. Since I’m only starting the project.
**
1. Construction of the antenna
**
The base plate will be an aluminium frying pan. 0€ from the junkpile.
The arms will be fence fiber glass sticks from the garden shop, 30€ for 20 poles, 1.25m each.
Hydrolic PP clamps (1€ each) + A2 stainless steel bolts (20€/200).
The chickens are helping:
**
2. What’s next ?
**
- Making the center post.
- Cutting wires and strings and tuning them.
- Deciding between making a simple mast or buying a telescopic mast, not sure yet. A telescopic mast would be much handier for antenna setup and maintenance. Crafting such a mast seems a bit tricky, and since I don’t have the tools for it, I’m afraid it might not be worth it financially because galvanized pipes are sold in 6m long and it’s also usually quite hard to find pipes fitting tightly in each other.
- Making the rotator from a 12V DC gate motor I had in my junk pile. I’m already working on the software for it, as it will be controlled via an ESP32.
A teaser of the command control panel:
