RE: [amsat-bb] My first Y2K contact on satellite

[Tony Langdon <tlangdon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > > those Arrow dual-band antennas with the duplexer.
> > 
> > Does take a few goes at getting it all together.
> 
> From day-one I cut my Arrow in half since it is overkill on 
> the digital
> birds.  Thus, I can use the lower half as 4 elements on UHF 
> and 2 elements
> on VHF.  If I need more gain, it takes only 2 seconds to stick on the
> upperhalf.

Neat trick.  Those antennas aren't available here to my knowledge.  Most
portable operators use whips, though I do know one other who uses a beam, at
least on 70cm.  I ended up going the homebrew route myself and came up with
a pretty effective dual band beam.

> 
> BUT I WAS AMAZED to see that the way Arrow now sells the "split" boom
> version, they cut the boom at the 3rd UHF element so you 
> cannot even use
> it in its HALF configuration.  The only thing you can do with 
> the lower
> half the way they did it is to use 3 elements on UHF and only 
> the VHF feed
> dipole which is now then drastically missmatched.

Someone ought to tell them to change their antenna design so they can market
a properly designed split boom model.  If they have any idea of customer
service, buth Arrow and the consumer wins. :-)
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