Part of our Building Your First Ham Radio Station guide.
The Moxon antenna is a two element parasitic beam, meaning it has a driven element and a reflector, the same basic idea behind a two element Yagi. The difference is in the shape. Instead of two straight elements mounted parallel to each other on a boom, a Moxon bends the outer tips of both elements back toward each other, folding the whole thing into a compact rectangle. It was developed and popularized by Les Moxon, G6XN, and the design has become one of the most practical small beams in amateur radio.
Why the shape matters
Bending the elements back does two useful things at once. First, it shrinks the overall footprint. A Moxon typically needs only about 70 percent of the boom length, and total width, of an equivalent two element yagi for the same band, which matters enormously if you are working with a small yard, an apartment balcony, or a portable mast that has to go up and come down in a few minutes. Second, the close spacing between the folded back tips of the driven element and reflector creates strong coupling between them, which gives the Moxon an excellent front to back ratio, often 30 dB or more, noticeably better than a basic two element yagi of similar size. That means signals and noise coming from behind the antenna get suppressed hard, which is a real advantage when you are trying to pull a weak DX signal out of a noisy or crowded band.
What you give up compared to a full size, multi element yagi is outright gain. A Moxon typically delivers something in the range of 4 to 6 dB of gain over a dipole, which is respectable but well short of what a three or four element yagi on a full size boom can do. In exchange, you get a lighter, smaller, cheaper antenna that is genuinely practical to build, mount, and rotate without a huge tower and a heavy duty rotator.
Where Moxons shine
- Small yards, where a full size yagi simply will not fit but a rotatable beam is still the goal.
- Portable operating, including POTA and SOTA activations, since a Moxon built from lightweight materials packs down small and goes together fast.
- VHF and 6 meter work, where the smaller wavelength makes even a full size Moxon quite compact to begin with.
- Anywhere you want strong front to back rejection more than raw forward gain, such as pulling weak signals out from under strong local noise sources behind the antenna.
Watch one get built
Chuck, KK6USY, runs the Ham Radio Adventures YouTube channel and has put together some of the most watched, practical Moxon build videos in the hobby. A couple of good starting points:
- How to make a 20 meter Moxon antenna for home or portable use
- How to make a 6 meter Moxon, the cheap way
The full KK6USY Ham Radio Adventures channel is worth browsing beyond just these two, since Chuck covers a wide range of homebrew antenna builds, not just Moxons, and shows real construction, testing, and field use rather than just theory.
If you have never built a beam antenna before, a Moxon is one of the friendliest places to start. The math is well documented, the materials are cheap (PVC pipe or fiberglass spreaders and wire will get you most of the way there), and the payoff in front to back rejection and directional gain is immediately obvious the first time you rotate one and hear a signal disappear behind you.