Cubical Quad Antennas and Margaret's Letter

Posted2 months agoActive2 months ago

austinallegro

18 points

6 comments

ei3lh.euTechstory

calmpositive

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Amateur RadioAntenna DesignElectronics

Key topics

Amateur Radio

Antenna Design

Electronics

The post discusses Cubical Quad Antennas and shares a personal anecdote about Margaret's letter, sparking a discussion among amateur radio enthusiasts about antenna design and historical context.

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01Story posted
Oct 22, 2025 at 1:05 PM EDT
2 months ago
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Oct 26, 2025 at 5:13 AM EDT
4d after posting
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3 comments in 84-96h
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Oct 27, 2025 at 1:04 PM EDT
2 months ago
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Discussion (6 comments)

Showing 6 comments

rmason

2 months ago

1 reply

I'm a ham and well remember quad antennas. They were inexpensive, some people created them using bamboo for spreaders. Just wire and bamboo with a small boom. What those who tried them in Michigan found out they wouldn't survive a single winter, even when they moved to fiberglass instead of bamboo.

The period of popularity lasted from the late sixties until the early eighties. You will still find them in tropical climates but they are no where near as popular as they once were.

ErroneousBosh

2 months ago

They last pretty well down south here at 57°N on the west coast of Scotland, but you need to make them out of fairly good wood, or PVC pipe is better. They'll withstand even the 140mph winds we get for four weeks of the year (in the local language we call this "January") but if they get hit by flying debris they're gone.

tzs

2 months ago

1 reply

> A quick bit of detective work led me to uncover a poster for the Shrewsbury Musical and Floral Fete that would be taking place of the weekend of August 21st to the 22nd in the year 1968.

August 21st and 22nd in 1968 were Wednesday and Thursday so I'm confused that the author is calling that the weekend.

IAmBroom

2 months ago

1 reply

They assumed.

9-5 M-F jobs were not the norm for festivalgoers back then, but then again Ticketmaster wasn't selling the tickets for $200 markups, either.

tzs

2 months ago

The odd thing is that the poster the author included for the festival says it is Wednesday and Thursday.

ErroneousBosh

2 months ago

The calculations on the back of the envelope are for working out the lengths of the diagonal spreaders for a 14MHz quad antenna.

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ID: 45672085Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 3:10:53 PM

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