Antenna Genius - Interested, Questions.

n1ah

Hi!

I currently have a 6400 and have 4 or 5 antennas I use with it. My operation is 100% remote. To switch between antennas I use an internet controlled antenna switch I purchased from ebay years back. Its starting to flake on me, so I saw this antenna genius item here.

How is it controlled remotely? Do I just connect it to my lan and have an app to switch or does the flex control it somehow?

I see its an a 8x2? Would i connect each flex output to it? Or should I look at the 8x1 since my setup is very simple? My antennas are mainly wire. My main is an end fed wire which I have in Ant 1, and my various other antennas are in this “remote switch”. I guess Id be able to put all 5 into the genious and use Ant 1 or Ant 2 with combinations of whichever ants?

Hope that makes sense

Adam N1AH

Rich M5RIC

If you use the Flex to control the AG (it's on the same LAN as the flex) then once set-up it can switch automatically based on the flex's band/frequency it's on. No user input required - have a look at the AG manual and you will see how it's configured. Very simple just choose which bands/frequencies are used for each antenna port. If you have a tri band beam plugged in to port 1, whenever you select 10,15 or 20m, it will automatically use port 1 etc.

If you have multiple antennas for any one band, you can use the utility that 4O3A supply to click on whichever antenna you want - beam, vertical etc. If this sits on a PC at the site where the Flex sit's, remote to that pc and just click whichever antenna you want to use if there are multiple

The 6400 only has 1 SCU so you can't be on 2 bands using 2 antennas at the same time, so you will probably be fine with the 8x1.

73

Rich

Rick N4RZ

The 6400 will allow you to use separate antennas for receive and transmit. So, if you have a band where you have more than one antenna, you can use the 2X8 switch to set different antennas for transmit and receive. I have both a 6600M and a 6400M and have found that on DX often my 160M Inverted-L receives better than my 80M DIpole. By having the 2X8 switch and having both antennas 1 and 2 from the radio run to the switch I can use the computer to select the Inverted-L for receive and still have it available for use on 160M.