Moxon antenna for 12 / 17 mt

One day my sweet wife say me "hey Rich why don't you change hobby?, I'm bored to hear you screaming for hours like a fool, India Zulu Three Eco Alfa  Xray, you may go fishing and relax a little bit".  I sayed "Yes, your're right honey". A week later UPS drop me a package with 4 fishing rods and she said "I can't belive my self, it’s the first time you do what I have told you doing ".

The day after, looking at me assembling the antenna, she said " You know what, Rich? That's the last time I'll give you tips to construct more junk for the radio". She didn't know that I was already planning doing a Moxon with fishing rods.

The antenna comes from the need to cover 12 and 17mt bands investing less money as possible but with the best performances. A brief look at the net took me to the famous site http://www.moxonantennaproject.com/ where I downloaded the designing software for Moxons. The construction was quite easy and fast, the most critical part was finding the best SWR on both bands. It's known that the best performance on a multiband Moxon is achievable on the lowest band, 17mt in my situation, while the others are more critical. I played a bit around adaptors and the result is shown on the shots I took at the MFJ. Actually, is still on the garden waiting to be lifted up to the roof. I can’t express any real impression “On Air” performances since I did just some simple testing on the garden. However, I could hear some JAs on 17m and other DX in 12m, which gave me good vibes for the final installation.

Update: 2011 – This Antenna has never be installed as I bought the UB50 multiband antenna which makes a nonsense to use it anymore.

Update: 2013 – I want to share some considerations on the materials used to build it. The antenna, after 3 years waiting for his lift up to the roof layed on the garden becoming just dust… rods cracked simply by taking them on hands. I suggest anyone who wants to build it to use better and more expensive material than me.