A while back, I built a Cubical Quad beam antenna. I already had a 440 quarter wave ground plane at 40 feet. Since 440 can be really unreliable due it's relatively short range, I built the quad to make sure I could hit the 440 machines to my North. I mounted it about 30 feet up the tower. I used PVC pipe for the whole project so there wouldn't be any interaction of the antenna and the spreaders and boom. Well, you can't bend the plastic pipe so I attached the beam to the tower as best I could to point northward. Just my luck, It was pointed exactly between two metropolitan areas, and it made the antenna almost useless. I got fed up with it so today I climbed the tower and me and my blowtorch took care of that bad direction. It's now pointed right across three 440 repeaters. Now I can bring up the 440 machine that's about 40 miles out when the ground plane antenna that's mounted at 40 feet can't make the trip. When we have the next band opening on 440, I'll be ready. I chose to build the Cubical Quad because it's quick and easy, has more gain than a three element Yagi, and is waaaay more broadbanded than a Yagi. It also doesn't require a Gama match or Tee match. However, you can add a matching stub if you want to. I've done it with and without. This one is without and has a VSWR of about 1.3 : 1. Why make more work for myself? OK, for those who want to know why I didn't put a rotator on it, it's because I've fought that battle in the past and always lose because the rotators know more ways to break than I know ways to fix them. Basically, where I live there are only two directions towards a metropolitan area. That would be East toward Norfolk or North toward Petersburg and Richmond. If you are not familiar with Cubical Quads, you should do some research. Where you attach the coax is supposed to determine its polarity. No matter where you attach it, you're still going to get some of both polarities. It's one of those, you can't go wrong things.
