Build A 7 Element DIY Yagi For FM


Recently I bought myself another Bolin phase box to replace the box I sold a couple of years back, and I needed something to use for a phase antenna. I wanted an antenna with decent specs. Not only are antennas with good specs hard to find, FM antennas themselves are just hard to find. This 7 element antenna is supposed to have 7-8db gain with the most gain above 102mhz. Front to back radio is over 30db. Boom length is just 95.

I read about Brian Beezley designing a seven element FM antenna on a forum and reporting that it had pretty good specs, so I went to his website to see how it was put together. I had an old Winegard PR-5030 laying on the ground in my backyard, so I determined that I had plenty of aluminum available if I wanted to build it.

The specs for this antenna were on Brian's website but have since been removed and replaced with newer versions of the antenna. Here are the specs:


Since this antenna was completely constructed from an old semi-rusted out Winegard PR-5030 TV antenna, I used the same phasing lines from the Winegard. The line between DE1 to DE2 was the exact length anyway, so I simply switched it. The next phasing line from DE2 to DE3 had to be longer, so I cut two sets of the old phasing line and coupled them together to the correct length.
 


How does it work? Well I've had this thing up since 2013 and I'm still using it as a phase antenna  for my RSP Duo and it works fine.


Remember, this antenna is a 75 ohm device, which means your coax attaches directly to the antenna. What Brian recommends is that you make three turns of coax about 3" in diameter at the antenna. I screwed a small box to the underside of the antenna, put a F connector inside and soldered short leads to the driven elements. You'll need to do something like this also. See the photo at the top of this page. (Know what? You can still just use a 300 to 75 ohm balun and the results are fine.)

All in all, an FM antenna really worth building, especially now that there are no FM antenna manufacturers left in the USA.

©2013-2024 M. Bugaj No reprinting or copying without my permission!!

 

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