I built a temporary Moxon beam based almost entirely on the article by Allen Baker, KG4JJH, from QST May 2003, The Black Widow — A Portable 15 Meter Beam. Another useful article is from QST June 2000, Having a Field Day with the Moxon Rectangle, by L.B. Cebik, W4RNL. The original article also references a separate website where drawings for the parts can be downloaded. This not only helped the effort greatly but boosted my confidence that I could actually build a successful antenna. I also note the August 2005 QST article by KG4JJH that described building a dual band, 17 and 12 meter, Moxon. A further reference is here https://www.qsl.net/dk7zb/Moxon/Moxon.htm
My thought in building this beam was to provide coverage to key areas during a contest weekend. In this case it covers 15 meters. It is pointed toward Europe in the mornings and Asia/Pacific in the afternoon with South America and Africa in between. During the contest day I also run my MA6V 20m to 6m vertical. During the evenings I run a HF2V for 80m and 40m.
I found the antenna to go together quite well and it did not need to be tuned. It has low SWR across the 15 meter band. The mast is a 24 foot painter pole that gets a bit wobbly, but is guyed by some nylon rope. The rotator is my arm. It works quite well in to Europe, Africa, and Asia/Pacific. It helped me work my first Japan QSO’s on QRP power levels in the VK/ZL contest earlier this year.
[…] While I’ve looked at getting on some of the digital modes (setting up Cocoa Modem and listening in to some QSO’s), right now my only mode of transmission is CW or Morse Code. I enter the major CW contests, which is where I do most of my operating, and I watch the DX Clusters for CW contacts with new countries and new bands. Right now I’m at just over 170 countries confirmed on CW. This was done at 5 watts for the first 100 countries and now at 100 watts, all into verticals or on contest weekends into my 15 meter two-element Moxon beam. […]
[…] of the visitors, I wasn’t able to set up the 15 meter Moxon. I sure wish I could have put it into play. It would have been a super contest for that beam. […]
[…] working on another temporary antenna for use in my city lot during contests. You’ll recall my Moxon Beam for 15 meters that’s done such a great job on that band. I’ve been looking for […]
[…] my first directional antenna, a 15 meter two-element Moxon. You can read my write up on the project here. A few months ago I spent some time building a Vee Beam, with that write up here. A key part of […]
[…] are my favorite type of antenna. My first experience was with a homemade 15 meter version that snagged lots of QSOs for my single-band contest entries. The advantages of these […]