On Sunday, June 23, 2013 10:25:53 PM UTC-5, Ralph Mowery wrote:
"w5kcm" wrote in message

...

Hello to the group. Recently at a local hamfest I noticed a pile of

aluminum

next to a guys truck. Asking about it, he explained it was a 5 element 6

meter

beam that he thought is an M2.He went on to tell me that he had used it

for

several years and that it had high SWR and he used it with a tuner of some

type.

Otherwise it worked very well. We worked out a deal and I am now the owner

of

this antenna. It needs some cleaning up. From some research that I found a

pdf

file from M2, it looks to be a 6M5X model. My question is why would the

SWR be

high? The T match and coax balun all look to be good. The only thing I can

see

is that the T match rods look to be long. They are 14 3/8 " each side of

the

block. This looks longer than the pictorial in the pdf file from M2. They

do not

give a length for this rod. I found some info that M2 offered an upgrade

kit for

the 6M5, could this possibly be a partially upgraded 6M5? The boom and

element

lengths all match the 6M5X. Would anyone have the T match rod length for

the

6M5X?

Thanks and 73, Randy, w5kcm



By adjusting the rods the swr should be adjustable somewhat.



It may sepend on what the origional owner calls high swr. Six meters is a

wide band and the swr will go way up after about 51 mhz. It may be he was

trying to use it in the upper portion of the band.



The pdf I looked at for the 6m5x shows the shortning bars to be 7.5 inches

from where the rod starts out from. The rods are 12 inches long.



Here is a drawing of the antenna.

http://store.fastcommerce.com/m2incs...0610bdd-p.html

Ok, I was finally able to open the link. That is interesting this 6M5 to 6M5X conversion. The only thing I see is that the element lengths are different than the factory 6M5X. It looks like the elements on the older 6M5 model taper or have a smaller diameter than the 6M5X. The one that I have has continuous 3/8" tube elements. Possibly this is why the element dimensions are different. This shows me that this beam is not a conversion model.
I see that they are showing the T match rods to be 12". From this it looks like I need to cut the rods to 12" on my 6M5X. To be on the safe side, I should put up the antenna, set the shorting bars to 7.5" and then see what it looks like. Then start trimming the rods as needed. If someone out there has a 6M5X that can measure their T Match rods, can settle the issue. Thanks