The interior of a SteppIR Element Housing Unit (EHU) with stepper motor that drives copper-beryllium tapes in and out of the hollow antenna element tubes. The tapes are the radiating/active elements of the Yagi beam antenna. This SteppIR antenna is able to be resonant anywhere between 6.5 Mhz and 54 Mhz by adjusting the lengths of the Beryllium tapes. The tapes are wound on the spools that are seen in the picture using the cogged wheel that engage holes punched into the tapes. Cogged wheel is driven by a stepper motor, which has absolute positioning capability. The computerized controller knows how far to position out the tapes in the driver, reflector and director tubes for any given frequency.

Assembling an element housing unit (EHU) prior to installation.

Many parts to each unit..

Steve WA7DUH; Peter's wife Tacy (on the end); Gary W7TYQ and Dave W7DJE trying to program a 2M handi-talkie; and Peter AC7SB.

The reflector EHU and element return fixture mounted on boom.

Both the EHU and Element Return fixture must be leveled, then torqued to specifications.

Distance between this driven element EHU and the element return fixture is critical. Houston, we have a problem. The driven element is centered on the mast, which means it will loop around the tower. This will cause great difficulty with the tower guy lines.

Director element EHU and element return fixture.

Installing the driven element return fixture.

Coax switching unit. All three active elements may be driven.

All the cabling prior to clean up.

OK, how to these hollow fiberglass tubes go together??

Dave W7DJE helps measure out an element tube. These nesting tubes are pulled out, and the ends are trimmed to length with a hacksaw.

Although not called for in the assembly manual, on recommendation from Brian W7BJN, a glue bead is placed at each nesting tube junction to prevent them from sliding back in over time. Constant movement in the wind at the top of a tower can cause them to work in according to Brian. Made sense to this crew.

A very thick polifin heat shrink tube locks each joint into place.

Control lines from each active element and the coax switching relays come together into junction terminals.

There is a lot of electronics and relays that go into this antenna. Pictured is Gary W7TYQ that came up to help from Yreka CA.

After assembling 1 of the active elements on the grass by the tower in about 3 hours, assembly was moved into Steve & Linda's shop where an assembly line could be set up, as there are 6 of these to make. Time was reduced to about 1 hour per unit.