I have got the hex beam up for a trial on the spider mast. Not all the way up at 7m as it is a B**** to get uo on your own, if you know what I mean. You can do I one handed but need something to push the mast against and the first time i tried it looked ok then i tuned it east and It cane down and hit me on the head. Lesson 2 do the mast up tight (socket now ordered to do this)

Next time, picture this. You have the mast in your hand and the beam behind you. Lift and push the mast and up it goes , providing you have the guys sorted in the first place. Problem is you can’t see it going up so when you get your breath back and look the think has un hooked itself and the spreader lines are flapping in the breeze. Down we come again. Anyway there clearly is a technique to all this and by the time you have it sorted you will be a bit fitter. None of this applies if you have Mrs LDZ at home or are making this a permanent installation.

I will post some more detailed comparisons later as soon as I sort out the first issue which is the balun. (I think). On first try I couldn’t get any bands to resonate and on testing the balun shows continuity between the cores. Now some baluns are made to work this way and I am not sure if this one is. So I have mailed Waldi to see.

When I regain my strength to take it down again I will take the balun off and take it apart to see what is what but for the meantime I have bypassed it and get very good SWR readings on all the bands it covers. 6 to 20M including the WRAC bands.

Here is a short comparison size wise between the hex and StepIr.

I then connected it up to the FT5000 for a reception test. And yes , as usual when you want to do this sort of thing it is contest madness, so no chance of a QSO to test it out seeing as the WRAC were dead so we listened to a Brazilian station on 10M for a comparison

I would say that there is very little in it from this basic comparison but as soon as the balun issue is sorted we can give a head to head hopefully with a station for a QSO. Clearly this is not going to be totally un biased as I have shelled out multi quid for the DB11 so one hopes it is worth it for more that the 180 degree flippability - which is actually one of the best bits about it when you are searching the bands or get someone returning on the backside of the beam.