I have a SteppIR vertical, the one they call the BiggIR which tunes 40m thru 6m. They work great in that they are always the correct length and with options can track the radio dial, automatically adjusting the physical length in small increments every 50 KHz. Unless you do something really dumb, the design is very durable with copper-berylium tape for the radiating element housed inside nested fiberglass tubes. The antenna requires guys at 8' above the base and you must use radials.
If you really would use it as a flag pole, I have my doubts. It's pretty 'whippy' in a breeze with nothing attached. I suspect a flag could cause too much bending and snap an upper section in a stiff breeze. A Force 12 would be a better choice for that sort of thing. This antenna, and I'm confident any 1/4 wave vertical, is very sensitive to grounding. I've had to mount mine on the roof, and the vertical doesn't like being mounted up there (13' up in our case with the radials are layed out on our flat roof). I was warned by Fluid Motion (the mfr) this elevation would be an issue unless I could get it > 0.2 wave lengths off ground; that means more than 8m up to use the 40m band. At anything over 8m elevation, sloping the radials will improve the performance. It'a all in the report available on their site. In my own case the real component of impedance dropped to very small values- I've seen < 2 ohms depending on the band. At 2 ohms, that means most of the power is being dissipated back in the 50 ohm finals of the K2 and not out at the antenna. Yes, the KAT2 matches the complex component of impedance, but it doesn't do anything about matching the real component of impedance... that takes a matching transformer. Simply getting a low SWR doesn't necessarily mean you're getting power out to the antenna. If you can mount the antenna at ground level, then the real component of impedance should move up to 35-40 ohms and you should be a happy camper. Btw, the SteppIR will tune 40m - 6m as a vertical, and in a pinch will even tune 2m. For beams and the dipole from Fluid Motion, I believe you have to buy an accessory to tune 6m. Also, there's a photo on their site of a pretty stealthy installation using their 20m-10m dipole (I don't know if it will tune 6m) mounted flat on a roof right at the ridge. You would have to know what you were looking for to spot it since it's only an inch or 2 off the surface. Check their site if that's of interest. If you want to request info about any of the SteppIRs, don't bother with their e-Mail. They've given up because of spam and only respond to phone calls. Bruce NM5B Santa Fe, NM ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Wiener" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Elecraft email" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 6:02 PM Subject: [Elecraft] VERTICALS > > Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anyone mention SteppIR, though I > seem to remember a mention of it earlier. > > I do not have one, but I've seen articles showing one masquerading as > a flag pole. > > As many know, the SteppIR has a metal "tape" element that is metered > out from the base within a PVC (I think) tube. The antenna element > can be shortened/lengthened remotely to maximize performance on any > HF band. This design intrigued me. Seems many of us end up retiring > in CCR environments. Who can argue with a good ol' American flagpole? > http://www.steppir.com/ > > (I have no connection with the company.) > > John > AB8WH > _______________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Post to: [email protected] > You must be a subscriber to post to the list. > Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): > http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm > Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com > _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
