W8ZHO | EZO Upgrade

This is where we left off. Back in November we thought a couple week would be enough time for the club to try out its new antenna. But once winter weather set in, members visited the club only for scheduled events and kept to the agendas. Contest at the clubhouse were low-band affairs, so the EZO didn't get much use. Chuck W8CCS logged the first QSO with the 2-element EZO. He then tested the antenna and and compared its performance to our 3-element Yagi. You can see what Chuck said about that test by taking this link: Chuck on the EZO
Bill NA8M and Kirk W8GXT used the 2-element EZO on different days in February. They were both very pleased. I have text from their email posts that describe their experiences. Please take the following links to read what they said. See Bill on the EZO and Kirk on the EZO After getting such nice reports from these experienced DX/Contesters, I figured it was time to get the third element in place. The timing is right, becasue we have the ARRL International DX Contest this weekend.
The director has been lashed to the tower, hanging about two feet off the ground, since November. This was a great place to keep it. It was out of everybody's way there, and so it didn't get damaged. It was a relatively small job getting it in place. I took care of it by myself. It took about two hours.
Before I added the director, I recorded SWR on all five bands with the 2-element EZO, just to be sure nothing had changed since the last time I used it. Then I checked the front-to-back ratio with a station in Belguim. His signal was solid and not fading at all. I recorded S-9 off the front and S-1 off the back. With over 40 dB F/B, I was very satisfied.
I had to leave right after installing the director because I had an afternoon appointment back in town. I didn't take the time to use the antenna. However, I am sure it will perform beautifully this weekend. My confidence is because of my experience on my own EZO at home. You might notice that the director appears very small compared with the other elements. That's because the dielectric affects the signal both coming and going with parasitic elements. Physically, even the reflector is smaller than the driven element, which is not the case for ordinary antennas.