The 2 element Cubex Quad at a height of 10 Mx
Even though it can be very windy here, I decided to put up a 5 Band HF Quad antenna for a number of reasons...
I had a Quad at the home QTH some years ago and know that they work very well at a low height... I decided on
the Cubex Quad made in the USA... I ordered heavier gauge wire than is usually supplied and when delivered
everything was accounted for...
A flat area of about (30 by 30) feet, ( 9 by 9 ) metres is needed... The fibreglass spreaders are strong but lightweight
and need to be pegged to the ground to enable the fitting of the wires...
On the 20 and 17 Mx loops, ' wire wraps ' as shown are fitted to minimise flexing of the wires where they go through the
spreaders and to maintain the shape of the elements... Also, the ends of the wires need to be soldered so that they
can be pushed through the spreaders more easily...
Since we have no electricity supplied to the area here, I ordered the matching transformer, even though the performance
of the antenna wont be as good as if an antenna switch with matching coax sections was used to feed the Quad...
It took me about a day and a half to assemble the 2 halves of the antenna...
Be careful not to overheat the balun when soldering, like I did... It would pay to connect the wires to the solder lugs
and then take them off the balun, one by one, before soldering...
The boom and feedline were connected to the Driven element while it was still on the ground...
A steel and wooden platform was installed half way up the tower to support the antenna... The two halves were lifted
and pushed up onto the platform from where the Quad was raised to the top of the tower using rope and a pulley...
It was then lifted onto the central pole and the U bolt nuts tightened...
The 50mm (2 inch), 6 metre (20 foot) pole running through the centre of the tower was reinforced by a 2.5 metre sleeve
of pipe about 2 metres down from the top to prevent it from bending... The 6 metre pole was then raised to a total
height of 10 metres (33 feet) by adding, at ground level, two lengths of 2 metre pipe as seen in the photo...
Two of us stood on the central platform and managed to lift it... It was very heavy...
Rotator housing - a Prop Pitch motor...
Feb. 2013... This Quad antenna has been in the air for 4 years now...
It works beautifully and I'm very happy with it... email
For Wallpaper images of the Cubex Quad here click here
To see the construction and installation of the 20 foot Tower click here
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