**My latest antenna project that took me from June 28th thru August 2nd, 2021 to git finished!**

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And so.. the thinking and preparing beginz!! I have done some on the beam project. As you will see in some of the pics below here. Its just been too damm HOT outside (100+ every day for more than a month straight now at home planet!) lately to do much to it. Except for what I can do inside. Especially with it being up on my roof for now. So it is going slower than I want. Its slowly gittin there! Definitly before winter gits here.. wheneverz.


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OK.. Once I had a few dayz to think about a plan of attack on the 10 element beamer, once a few somewhat nicer and cooler dayz happen to come along, so I got after the first part that I needed to git done. Got one of my 10 element beams off the roof and brought it down. Mounted it to my antenna tripod stand and got after it.
The first thing I did though, was drill through the boom mast where the 3 boom parts join together and put a small bolt through it so that it stays straight! All Cushcraft supplies (AR148-10S) is 2 hose clamps for it. Wild winds do not hold it all keeping lined up!
Next.. I hand drilled 1/4 inch holes through the boom just behind the rear of each element. Yes.. as you will eventually see in the pics, the 1/4 inch wood dowels are not exactly straight up and down. This is just a test, right? :-) This is back of the driven element.




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This is back of the reflector element. If my theory works properly when this is all through, I will be using a drill press for drilling these 1/4 inch holes in the boom of my 13 element beam so they will be straight like they all should be!




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Here, I have them all drilled for the 1/4 inch wood dowels. Just eye ballin down the beam to see what boom sag there is, or not, and if all elements line up straight as to what is there already.




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Just another closer look at the driven element area, with 1/4 inch hole there.




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One last eye ballin before it goes up on the roof for temporary mount and continued work. Some of the aluminum element roads, need to be bent a little so they straight down the left side view here.




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Just mounted in a temporary spot to where I can reach and work on the thing safely for now. I can pull the beam any direction I want to bring it closer to my being on the roof, and not having to think about fallin off! Its tied off for now to keep it from spinnin in the winds.




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What its lookin like for the time from ground level. Its eventually got git done.




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Well.. I finally got the wood dowels glued in place! As you can see, my hand pre-drilling the holes in the boom, not all of them turned out being perfectly straight.. Oh well. The wooden dowel elements are NOT going to be electrically energized in any way with existing beam. It still remains as a 10 element horizontally polarized yagi style beam. Until I finally git done with it and it hopefully works the way I be a hopein it will. Time will tell.




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What it looks like viewing from the ground for now. Kinda straight anyways. Straight enough for testing my theory anyways.




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Just a closer zoomed in view of the experiment.




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Becuz of the crazy outside HOT heat this summer, some of what would be next is being done inside home. I came up with the idea of cutting different lengths of zip-ties to be bended and folded so they can be taped in place to hold the loop wire on the ends of the elements, while I glue them to dry and stay there. Of course, its all NOT electrically conected to original beamer, or conductive in any way.




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FInally, after measuring and cutting for a whiles, here is the pile of the elemtns zip-tie holders. Still have to bend the things. Oh well.. somethin to do, right!




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The 2 pieces needed for the driven element, because of it being a 1/2 round tube.




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This is my invention for being able to bend each of the zip-ties ahead of time. I did glue the 2 dowels in to the holes in the lid for stability.




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The stand for pre-bending the zip-ties. Cardboard base to keep it from tippin over.. some anyways.




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Some of what they each will eventually look like for when the time comes.




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Got all of the needed zip-ties pre-bent and in a dish so I dont looz them all. Next, is to git up on the roof and do at least one of the loops!




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Started with putting the ties on each end of elements first. Wood one here.




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This was one on the regular metal beam element.




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Starting to put wire around on it. This is laying it in there.




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Tapeing it again to hold it in place. Same on all of them. They all will be eventually glued at each end spot for stronger hold.




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This is what the metal elements lookin like.




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This is the reflector element looped. Still have to glue it, but am gona wait until I get them all done first. Only 9 more to go!




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Due to the fact that trying to keep the wires between each element as tight and straight as possible, when I cut the final length of this one, my twisting the ends of each wire together was not possible. So.. used a butt connector to bring it all together.




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Another view and tieing it up for a while, as of July 20th, until I get a chance and the weather cools down sometime (If and when, right!) to git up there again and continue with the rest of them.




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Well.. On Sunday late mornin August 1st, with the cloud cover and only about 80 degrees out, although 45% humidty and no wind sucks, I figured I would start gettin after wirein up some of the other elements. Got through the back 5 elements so far, and had to come in and cool off the sweaty stickyness for a whiles. Only 5 more to go!




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I did manage and force myself to git back up on the roof and do the rest of the elements wires. Some of the wires are a little wiggley, and some are tight. Oh well.. its just a test, right?!




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Well.. got them all, except the front director element. Ran out of wire! Had 3 feet of it left off the roll of 100ft. Oh well. Git some more soon. The 14ft of the 100ft wire roll, I had used for when I made that hourglass antenna.




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Another view of it all here. More wire needed for the last front director to finish it and check SWRs testing, etc. Roughly where it is at, with everything near it and having it pointed towards the tree, SWRs were at 1.3-1.4 on it at 144.200-144.250. Back when it was up at 50ft, it was 1.2 from 144.200-144.250. Thats to be expected down this low with everything in the ways.




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Finally got the front and last wire on the beam element. I have not connected it to my radio yet as to any noise reduction to my process. I did point the antenna back at the tree and check SWRs again. Now that all the wires are on each element, it did make the SWRs go up. I figured it would make some change to it. SWRs are now up to 1.8-1.9 at 144.200-144.250. I did notice when checking, that SWRs went down the closer I got to 141.000-142.000 at 1.3-1.4. Maybe tuning the driven element I can bring it back up to where it should be? Time will tell..

**Well.. nice idea, but I gave up on the thing! Did not bother with the SWRs and trying to get them where they supposed to be at. I did plug in to radio, but still noisey. Guess they have to be energized and made the right way. Oh well. As of August 10th, 2021, I did find a 8 element quad beam that a guy back in Looeezeeana makes. So waiting for it (a real one) to show up, then put up high in place of my Cushycraft A13B2. The 8 element quad has 14.0 dbi gain, whereas the Cushycraft A13B2 13 element beams has only 13.2 dbi gain. Times will tell.. again..




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