![]() ![]() Its purpose is to provide a six-meter antenna during the winter when my temporary push-up mast Yagi installation is in storage. I haven’t done too much with the antenna yet. Recently I’ve added the six-meter Omniangle positioned in the alcove over my ham shack. Of course, I later added cheap Yagis, Diamond Yagis, and now Directive Systems Rover Yagis for those bands. They worked great to get me started on those higher bands, plus they offered horizontal polarization. My first use of the Par Electronics Omniangles was on two meters and 70 cm. Six Meter Omniangle 6-meter omniangle along with a 222 MHz omniangle and 432 MHz eggbeater. It’s better for a permanent installation. The LFA would not have worked in this application as it is heavy and a fairly complex build. This one fits the bill nicely and I’ve already worked several new DXCC countries in Europe and South America from my backyard installation. I also wanted a lightweight antenna for use on the push-up mast. Given that temporary use, I wanted a Yagi that could be easily taken apart and put back together again for transport and storage. Plus, I often use it during rover operations in the CQ WW VHF Contest where I only activate a couple of grids. My motivation here was to find a higher gain antenna than the Moxon for use on a temporary installation with a push-up mast in my backyard. Recently, I’ve purchased an M2 6M-3SS Yagi. So, after a while trying to discern a big difference with the Moxon, I put the Moxon back on the push-up mast. The construction is rock solid but sitting up there on top of a push-up mast along with the rotator, made me pretty nervous in the high winds that sweep through from time to time. It works nicely and offers reduced noise, although I wasn’t able to discern much difference. Click the link to learn more about my experience. I did a fair bit of review of the available options and selected the InnovAntennas 3-element LFA. Next up in my six-meter antenna journey was trying to find a bit more gain while still fitting the antenna into my yard. This is easily my favorite six-meter antenna. That works great for contests when the band is open. While the gain isn’t as great as the multi-element Yagis, I like that its broader beamwidth covers a lot of ground without needing to tweak the rotator. It can hit a tree and be bent back into shape for the next grid stop - don’t ask me how I know. I’ve used it for years at home on a push-up mast and more recently on my rover operations. It works great with good gain, sound front-to-back rejection, and incredible construction. The Par Electronics Stressed Moxon brings this compact design to six meters. With the tips of the driven element and reflector bent to nearly touch, it squeezes the width of the antenna into a much smaller space. The advantages of these antennas are directional, good front-to-back, and smaller than a Yagi. My first experience was with a homemade 15-meter version that snagged lots of QSOs for my single-band contest entries. So, a vertical is worth trying on six meters. And mine is mounted at roughly 20 feet above the ground. I will note that the MA6V is an offset center-fed vertical dipole. That included Scotland, my first European six-meter contact. ![]() So I started working stations on FT8 and to my surprise, they answered. I avoided using this antenna on six since at first I had the dipole and later a Moxon followed by a 3-element Yagi.īut, over the past few years, the only antenna I had was the vertical. This added to my HF contest capabilities. In 2011 I purchased a Cushcraft MA6V vertical that covers 20 to 6 meters. But my own experience has been eye-opening. I would imagine that is true above six meters. Here my experience has been surprising given the prevailing wisdom that you must be horizontally polarized for VHF DX. Six Meter Vertical MA6V in the clear, up 20 feet ![]() I’ll also note that I’ve worked Argentina and Uruguay using that dipole and 100 watts. My write-up on my efforts at Six Meter Dipole has been the post with the most traffic on this website since it was published in 2014. It is horizontally polarized, which purportedly is best for VHF DX. Roughly 9 feet from tip to tip, it can fit almost anywhere. What’s not to like about a six-meter dipole? It’s simple and easily built. Then there’s six meters, the Magic Band, where the antennas are small enough to fit in your backyard or even your attic. Antennas are always fascinating, with lots and lots of options from homebrew to buy it off the shelf. ![]()
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