Some phases of the SP6CYN hexbeam built-up
Hamradio antennas are delivered in a DIY package to reduce transportation costs.
After unpacking and checking the components list, I built it up on the terrace. To be able to work on it, I used a simple parasol mount. The wires for the 6 bands (6m, 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m and 20m) were attached temporarly to have them calibrated so that the SWR values of all bands are as close to 1:1 as possible.
Then I raised the hexbeam using an extra pole to get a little more distance to the ground level and re-measured all SWR values again to see if they were getting better. If not, small adjustments on the position of the wires was carried out to get the optimal values.
In the meantime I calibrated the Yaesu G-1000SDX rotor to make it ready for mounting on the mast.
The package arrived directly from Poland.
Everything is nicely packed inside, waiting to be assembled...
The first assembly stage on the terrace.
Quite late in the evening all wires are attached and the first SWR measurements can take place.
Raising the hexbeam a bit to get better vue on the SWR values of the various bands
Taking down the Diamond X300N to make place for the hexbeam.
In view of facilitating future works if something gets wrong (which of course I hope it will never happen) , the 2 parts of the mast (each with a length of 3 meter), were connected with a so-called tilt plate. However, the weight of the beam and the rotor seemed to be to much for this piece and so it got bent in stronger winds. To solve this I took a thick plastic cutting board for kitchen use, and constructed some parts from it to be able to put a second smaller mast aside the main mast. To be sure it would be strong enough I used 4 heavy clamping bands, of which I mounted 2 above and 2 below the tilt plate. In October 2026 we had a severe storm with gusts upto 68 km/h so the construction was tested quite soon and proved to be strong enough.
Detail of the tilt plate and the extra piece of mast fixed aside of it..
Finally everything was its intended place, resulting in the new antenna array, as you can see in the 'Antenna' section above.
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