Lightning Bolt Quad installation By W7IS

Pictures showing the final installation of 2 ele 5 band LB Quad with optional 3" boom.

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 02:28:10 GMT

Here are several pictures showing different views of the final installation. The 2 ele 5 band LB quad with 3" boom is mounted on a 26 ft Glen Martin aluminum roof tower that has been installed on a deck 8 ft off the ground. One picture shows it facing north towards EU, looking across Lake Osoyoos into Canada. About 80 ft above the surface of the lake. This installation provided less than 1.5 to 1 SWR across all 5 ham bands and it has great gain and acceptable front to back ratio. The LB quad is the best performing ant I have installed in my 47 years of ham radio. Like all well designed quads, it can make wire antennas seem like a dummy load for DX :-) Highly recommended.

Six Pictures of Spider and Matching Transfomer

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 01:59:52 GMT

These six pictures show the 13ft fiberglass spreaders that have been added to the spider and pictures of the matching transfomer after the ant was in the air. The 13ft fiberglass spreaders are well made and very sturdy. Since the 13ft long spreaders have an overlap on the spider tube of only 3 3/4", I added an extra stainless steel clamp on each spreader for better support. As you can see when the picture is enlarged, the spider tubes are welded on two sides ---- to the square plate of the 3" boom adapter plate. Since I live in an area that gets 90mph winds several times each year, I would have liked it better if the spider tubes were twice as long and the spider configuration was changed to allow welding the tube on both top and bottom. Those upgrades might increase the abliltity to survive higher winds that can occure in some areas.

Quad being winched into position plus picture of boom to mast plate

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 02:22:56 GMT

I placed a chain around the tower 8 ft from the bottom and then attached it to a chain hoist on an 8ft high re-inforced 6 X 6 that was part of the railing of the deck. Due to the light weight of the aluminum 26ft tower and light weight of the 2 ele LB quad, it hoisted up easily. Everything was selected in an attempt to keep the weight downt to bare minimum. The 9ft medium duty aluminum mast came from Glen Martin and the Yaesu G800SDX rotator and Yaesu GS-065 thrust bearing at the top of the tower are also made of aluminum and very light.

The second picture shows the boom to mast plate once the ant was in the air. The clamps are heavy galvanized and sturdy. Designed for a mast size of 2" OD.

spiders, boom to mast plate, balun, wire clamps, aluminum welding wire

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 01:42:13 GMT

This is a picture of the two heavier 3" spiders, boom to mast plate, aluminum welding wire, matching transformer and special wire clamps for the spreaders. If you look closely at the spiders you might be able to see that they are welded at a slight angle upwards. This provides the 10ft spacing on 20M from an 8ft boom. I highly recommend ordering the LB quad with the optional 3" boom for added strength over its lifetime. As quads can be very unforgiving in high winds. Especially if you have the 5 band version with over 500 ft of wire strung on those 13ft spreaders :-) The matching transformer provided a 1 to 1 SWR when terminated in around 125 ohms. About right for a 5 band quad. Its a fairly small matching transformer so my guess is it will handle 1.5kw intermittant duty CW or SSB. It would be very unwise to run a California Kilowatt as it would be a considerable amount of work to change it out :-) And you all know who I'm talken about :-)

Assembled spreaders on spiders

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 01:45:38 GMT

Here are several pictures of the reflector and director before the aluminum welding wire is added. I first spray painted the bare spreaders with a green enamle so that the speaders would blend in with the green evergreen trees in this area. That also helped seal the sharp edges of the fiberglass spreaders. As without the paint it's necessary to use gloves to prevent injury. The proper installation of the aluminum welding wire is another matter. I spent a great deal of time testing the wire to find its weaknesses. I ended up bending the wire over a 1/4" saw file with my fingers. That gave the proper sized loop to attach to the stainless screws. You need to be very careful to use only the very minimum of pressure on the nuts. If you tighten the nuts till there is no more resistance felt, it will have damaged the aluminum wire to where it will be very easy to break. I used a jam nut over each nut to keep it from loosening up. In order to keep tension on the wire while it was being threaded into the spreaders, I attached a heavy pair of vice grips to the end of the wire and pulled the vice grips along the ground towards the element. That prevented the wire from coming loose and coiling up. The aluminum welding wire is very unforgiving and you have only one chance to get it right. So take your time and be careful. I used a 100ft fiberglass measuring tape and cut them to the exact length specified. You should be able to substitute solid core 14 gauge copper clad steel wire without changing the tuning. It will add a few lbs of weight to the ant and increase the cost by quite a bit. I decided to live with the aluminum welding wire and take great care during installation. The second picture shows the spreader with the unique wire holders attached. After you thread the wire through the holders, you will need to establish the correct amont of tension for each wire by moving the wire holders in and out on the spreader. You can set the spider on a 3 ft high support while making the tension adjustments. That way you can see the amount of offset that the spreaders have. When I got the quad in the air, I had the correct amount of offset on the reflector but not as much offset on the driven element. Although it looked correct on the ground. It might have had something to do with the heavy 2kw coax I used on the driven element --- which could have pulled the matching transformer back towards the center of the boom? You just have to be careful to not put too much tension on the wires as then they can break under wind loads. So set the tension so that its not too tight but still keeps the wires in proper position and it will probably be pretty close to being the correct offset. The performance on 20m for gain and front to back ratio was excellent even though I might not have 10ft spacing on 20M.

8ft long 3" boom attached to the mast

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 02:08:29 GMT

In order to install the quad elements, I elected to tip the tower over and use a 12ft step ladder to install the elements at ground level. Raising the elements up on the deck was the most difficult part of the installation. I had to first push the elements up on the roof, then slide them down onto the deck in position to attach to the boom. Due to the large awkward size of the elements, it required a lot of pre-planning to get everything lined up correctly. The tower is a 26ft aluminum Glen Martin Roof Tower that I installed on a 50ft long deck (rather than on a roof).

Elements installed on the boom

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 02:16:42 GMT

This is a picture after installing the elements on the boom using a 12ft heavy duty step ladder. I coated the ends of the 3" spider adapter with silicon grease to make it permanently corrosion free. Then they slipped onto the 3" boom easily. After I had one element attached, I raised the tower high enough to allow the antenna to be rotated 180 degs so the other element could be installed. I had pre-planned it all so that once the second element was installed it would be pointing true north and the rotator was then properly calibrated at true north as well. That way it was not necessary to climb the tower.