Nick’s Signal Spot is a new feature in which Nick Langan explores RF signals, propagation, new equipment and related endeavors.
On Monday, we were without power for approximately 12 hours at my house in southern New Jersey, following the nor’easter that dumped approximately 15″ of snow where we live. My brother, Bobby, had gone outside to start the digging-out process.
Then he came back in and uttered: “Your antenna is hanging downward.”
My response, as any deep radio enthusiast can relate to, was: “Which one?”
But then he said it was the antenna on our roof, and I knew it was the APS-13 FM Yagi. My heart immediately leapt into my throat.
The Antenna Performance Specialties APS-13, with the number 13 referring to its number of antenna elements, is a specimen. At approximately 200 inches in boom length, it takes a large area to mount. It was developed by Ed Hanlon sometime around the turn of the century.
Hanlon stopped building them around 2008. Its sister model, the smaller, nine-element APS-9B, is also still reliably used by several hobbyists, and there was an even larger, 14-element APS-14.
But the APS-13 achieved legendary status, particularly around the time it was invented. Brian Beezley (K6STI)’s modeling of the antenna demonstrates its quality.
Prior to the APS-13, for a consumer-grade product, the best receiving antenna around that time was the Channel Master Probe-9.
My longtime good friend and fellow long-distance FM radio DXer, Michael Temme-Soifer, purchased an APS-13 and told me of the feats he could accomplish from Atlantic County, N.J., with the Yagi, some 20 years ago now.
With no tropospheric enhancement, he could hear as far as WIKS(FM) in New Bern, N.C., and WOMP(FM) in Bellaire, Ohio — both well over 300 miles away — on a daily basis.
I’m an easy sell, and that was enough for me. In April 2005, I ordered mine and I had it installed.
For DXers in pursuit of a sharp antenna that could find nulls in local signals, the directionality of the APS-13 was unprecedented, and in my usage, it still is.
It’s harder today, what with so many signals on the air. But even so, particularly during summertime tropospheric enhancement, the APS-13 remains a champion.
One example is a null I always have on 100.1 WJRZ(FM) from Manahawkin, about 25 miles away. Whenever there is enhancement to the north, I can reliably hear 100.1 WDST(FM), from Woodstock, N.Y., 150 miles to the north.
The Yagi has survived a move to my current location in Tabernacle, Burlington County, and numerous nor’easters and wind events in between.
So, what’s its current status? It’s perilous. But somehow, despite the heavy, wet snow compromising the mast held by my chimney mount, the antenna itself looks intact.
The countdown is on for me to find someone, anyone, willing to scale my roof in the next few days.
I’ll keep you posted on how it unfolds!
[Read the Signal Spot from Nick Langan for More DX-Related Stories]
