Stiff wire quad

Based off design in Homing in, Radio Direction Finding Simplified, pgs 31-41

Read that, then read this for how those instructions were adjusted and executed.

- Used #12 solid wire for elements.  available at most hardware stores.  Get a roll of 50' green jacketed, it's cheaper since its used for ground wires.

- drill 9/32" holes into the spreaders to run the wire through

- once you have your boom elements cut to length and hooked together to form the boom, make 9/32" holes through the coupler end and boom, and use 4" pieces of the wire as cotter pins, insert and bend ends over.  This allows for tool-free disassembly/reassembly.  When measuring the spreader and boom elements, make sure you are accounting for the length taken by the T's.

- Cut the top of the T for the mast as indicated in the instructions, and use hose clamps on both sides to lock the polarization in place.  leave snug enough to hold put but able to rotate polarization by hand if needed.  Also when laying antenna on ground, set down on ends of spreaders on one side, and adjust the angle of the mast T just a little so the end of the mast can set on the ground while the elements remain square with the pavement and don't get bent.

- When cutting elements, cut wire 1" longer than "loop length", then after stringing wire through the spreaders, strip off 1" of jacket from both ends of the element, and solder them in parallel together like ||  this forms a very strong lateral bond.

- cut these four element lengths, and mark clearly at indicated points:
ref: cut 87", mark at 11+1/8, 32+3/8, 53+5/8, 74+7/8"
driv: cut 82", mark at 10+5/8, 30+7/8, 51+1/8, 71+3/8"
dir1: cut 80", mark at 10+7/16, 29+13/16 49, 68+3/8"
dir2: cut 79+1/2, mark at 10+7/16, 29+13/16, 49, 68+3/8"

the four marks represent where the element corner bends are at and will help you square it up quickly.  I installed mine so the "splice" on all four occur in the middle of the bottom horizontal run of the elements

after splicing the elements closed, I evened them up top-to-bottom and then wound 8" of electrical tape around the elements just above and below the spreaders, to keep the wire from moving.  hot glue would have also worked.

Then at the driven element I nipped away a little of the green jacket just above the spreader on one side, and then again 3+1/2" above that, to install the gamma match.  The match worked fairly well but I wasn't able to see any useful adjustment by trimming the capacitor.  Other sources also indicate keeping the length of the cutoff loop adjustable, but I have not experimented with that yet.

- For the feed coax, I used RG-174/u.  It's 50 ohm mini coax, (not much thicker than the #12 copper wire) and is very well shielded and easy to work with due to its thin size.  Finding connectors for it is tricky however.  I chose to attach a 20' run of that coax to the antenna directly, rather than install a BNC female on the antenna at the feedpoint, to simplify feedpoint construction.  This somewhat limits the degree to which you can break down the antenna however, I think I'd recommend going with the BNC jack at the feed.