Yagi Mechanical® is made to be straightforward and intuitive, so some of you may be able to figure out how to make use of it without any instruction at all. However, for those of you who are not quite ready to jump in feet first, this section of the manual will give you a basic idea of how the program can be used without going into unnecessary detail. If you still require more instruction, or just want to know what everything does to satisfy your own curiosity, continue on to the next section where each and every part of the program is covered.
When you start the program, you will see a splash screen of the YM logo, and the Main Window will appear. This window has tabs for each of the other major windows in Yagi Mechanical®, with the Antenna Design tab selected and showing an overview of the current design, including name, notes, and useful properties like total weight, wind area, and the maximum windspeed (VMax).
Open, Save, or start a New design using the menu at the top of the window, or select another tab to work on your current design. The Boom Design tab allows defining the tubing for the boom, where the mount point should be, and any supports out in either direction. In the Element Design tab you can review or remove existing elements, add new elements, add or modify tubing on the current element, and set a name and location of the element on the boom. Both of these tabs use the same Physical Sections list to define the pieces of tubing and where they are located in relation to either to the Reflector end (Boom) or to the center (Element). Use the shortcut buttons to the right of this list to add/remove tubing, extend or shorten by an inch, or shift a tube left/right by an inch. Yagi Mechanical® will take your defined tubing and create cross-sectional pieces to calculate the stresses - you can see these directly in the Mechanical Stress list at the bottom of the tab. The tubing fields can be edited directly too - press enter or select another field to accept the changes and YM will recalculate everything.
Use the Tubing tab and Materials tab to define specific types of tubing you would like to use in your design. YM already includes many predefined sizes, shapes, and materials that are commonly available, as well as making it easy to update the list with parts available from the DXE website.
On the 3D View tab, see a full model of all of the elements and the boom in your design. Using the mouse or keyboard, the antenna can be rotated, panned, or zoomed to see how all of the pieces fit together. Labels show the max stresses of the mechanical segments and can detail the sizes and materials. The cutaway view makes it easy to see cross sections of the design, which is especially helpful for multiple wall segments.
When you need a full list of the tubing pieces needed to construct the antenna design, use the Bill of Materials tab to have Yagi Mechanical® create it for you. For types of tubing with a defined price and available lengths, the quantities needed and their prices will be shown. Other tubing will be shown with an * with the detail on the cut list at the bottom. Also shown on the cut list is the breakdown of the usage of known available sizes.