w8io

The W8IO Antenna Site - 144-20V Yagi

(updated 3 Oct 2016)

This particular antenna design was inspired by Hartmut DG7YBN and he was inspired by Günter DL6WU and Brian K6STI. His designs blend extremely high antenna gain, high G/T (which means a low noise temperature) along with a broad gain and VSWR bandwidth. The DE design is also very easy to build and allows adjustment of VSWR without significantly affecting the gain and pattern performance. A broad VSWR and gain bandwidth is ideally suited for wet and snow/ice climates where accumulation of moisture on the elements can lower the antennas resonant frequency and degrade performance. In this design, I have adjusted the spacing and element lengths slightly to increase the Front/Rear to values over 30 dB in each plane. The E-plane achieves an amazing 37.04 dB Front/Rear (all lobes from -90 to -180 degrees) at 144.1 MHz. This allows the antenna to reject terrestrial noise sources to an extremely high degree for improved EME performance in noisy locations. Element diameters are common US sizes (1/4" and 3/16").

IO-144-20V Performance

Electrical Performance:                     0.250" Element Diameter            0.188" Element Diameter
Directive Gain (dBi)                                        17.87                                            xx
Power Gain (dBi)                                            17.76                                            xx
E-Plane F/R (dB)                                            37.04                                            xx
H-Plane F/R (dB)                                           31.63                                             xx
E-Plane 1st Sidelobe (dB)                              -17.7                                              xx
H-Plane 1st Sidelobe (dB)                             -15.6                                              xx
E-Plane Beamwidth (deg)                                25.5                                              xx
H-Plane Beamwidth (deg)                                27.0                                              xx
Max VSWR (144-146 MHz)                           1.3                                                xx
4 Bay G/T (dB) at 4.8m (E) x 4.6m (H)         +0.36                                              xx
4 Bay G/T (dB) at 4.8m (E) x 4.8m (H)              xx                                              xx
4 Bay G/T (dB) at 5.0m (E) x 5.0m (H)              xx                                               xx

Mechanical Performance:
Boom Length        42.3 feet       12.9 m        6.2 wavelength
Recommended Boom diameters: 1" to 1.75" either square or round (Texas Towers, DX Engineering or On-Line Metals)
Recommended element insulators: Directive Systems
Recommended element sources: On-Line Metals, McMaster-Carr

144-20V NEC file  EZNEC file (1/4" elements)
144-20Vse NEC file  EZNEC file (3/16" elements)

144-20V Dimensions
Element Cum Spacing
(m)		 0.250" Element Diameter
Element Half-Lengths (m)
Dielectric Boom or NEC simulation		 0.188" Element Diameter
Element Half-Lengths (m)
Dielectric Boom or NEC simulation
Reflector 0 0.5095 -
Driven Element
(0.375" OD)		 0.286 0.4905 -
D1 0.421 0.482 -
D2 0.707 0.4775 -
D3 1.246 0.466 -
D4 1.886 0.4585 -
D5 2.628 0.452 -
D6 3.419 0.446 -
D7 4.239 0.440 -
D8 5.086 0.4355 -
D9 5.939 0.4325 -
D10 6.771 0.432 -
D11 7.592 0.433 -
D12 8.393 0.432 -
D13 9.170 0.427 -
D14 9.925 0.423 -
D15 10.650 0.421 -
D16 11.406 0.413 -
D17 12.210 0.409 -
D18 12.900 0.400 -



Driven Element details (in):
DE


4NEC2 Patterns:





Comments are welcome!

contact Roger: email to 

rgcox2 (at) gmail.com

Roger Cox - Spring Lake, MI