A unique Yagi for PT0S DXpedition
The upcoming DXpedition to St. Peter & St. Paul Rocks PT0S (10-22 November) will be making use of a unique type of antenna on 10, 15 and 20 meters.
Necessitated by the rugged terrain – and very little of it – the Garden Beam came about through the experiences of HA7RY and AA7JV on Mellish Reef, Chesterfield Island and Willis Islet.
In other words, places surrounded by the beneficial RF ground made possible by saltwater.
Essentially it is a triband Yagi in which the entirety of the Yagi is the counterpoise for an array of vertical elements located 90 degrees from the traditional Yagi’s elements. Vertically polarized, derivatives of this antenna have
Click (twice) for larger
performed well in the above-mentioned locations.
Additionally, a tower is not needed as would be the case with a horizontally polarized antenna, further driving the decision for this design at PT0S since a tall support would be difficult on what are essentially rock outcroppings in the ocean.
More about the antenna and the DXpedition can be read here.
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Themocracy
In Hawaii great results from 1/2 wave vertical with “reflector”…see KH6MB at qrz.com; Martin modeled and perfected his idea for this system and he would regularly beat most monoband Yagis working out of Oahu. I just used 1/2 vertical at the beach and with ATS-3 in 2007 could work east coast in US with glowing reports from my 3 watts until 10-11 PM EDST.
Saltwater does wonderful things for RF. I’m looking forward to working PT0S for an all-time New One and it will also be interesting to see how signals sound from D64K next week…their antennas are prestty basic but I bet they’ll be loud nevertheless.
A lot of people have tried to access the gardenBeam site, but it would appear to have problems, if have access tot hem perhaps it would be in their benefit for it to be sorted.
You’re right – the site exists no more:
“This account has been suspended.
Either the domain has been overused, or the reseller ran out of resources.”