maco boomer ground plane kit

[BOOTY MONSTER]

anybody have any experience or know anything about this add on groundplane kit ?
any idea how durable it is ?

MACO :: Products>Antennas
http://www.eagle1com.com/storepp/antennas/maco/GPRK.pdf

this place has them for $40 + S&H . (yes a pic of the 107 , not the boomer)
Electronic Service Center
anybody know anything about Electronic Service Center ?

anyhow ..... looks to be 7 foot aluminium elements that attach to a hub that fits over the mast/pipe with a few set screws for attaching to the mast . neither maco or the pdf state what size pipe the hub would fit on , does anyone know ? 1 1/2 - 1 5/8 would be perfect .

eagle has it for $40 bucks , i figure 10-15 for shipping so its about the same price as just ordering the tubing id need from DX Engineering but i dont have to figgure out and fab and a mounting plate for the ground elements .

 

[Wire Weasel]

No experience Booty but this does look interesting. Sturdy horizontal GP kit and the price is right. Probably easy enough to extend out to 9' if wanted with a little extra tubing.

I like it

 

[BOOTY MONSTER]

according to the pdf the longer elements are 1/2 inch so the 3/8 inch by 3 foot tubing from DXE would be perfect for extending them .
Aluminum Tubing Type 6063 - 3 ft.
a little less than $18 including shipping to my area .

from what i can tell 1/2 waves and 5/8 or .64 wave length antennas arnt as dependant as as 1/4 waves on needing full 1/4 wave length ground elements . so 7 footers may be good enough . the sirio seems to be a very good performing antenna (outside of it liking to go open circuit of the matching coil) and it uses short ground elements just over 4 ft long and their 2000 series ground elements are just over 2 foot long , but they're are more of them .

 

[W5LZ]

Just something to think about...

There's really no great benefit in using 'horizontal' groundplane elements over the 'drooping' kind. All that 'droop' does is provide a means of raising the input impedance of the antenna. with a typical 1/4 wave vertical the input impedance is going to be lower than 50 ohms, so some 'droop' is one way of raising that to where you want it. With a typical 5/8 wave vertical the input impedance is also low, but is at least partially 'made right' by the matching coil. That means that the angle of the dangle for the radials can be almost anything and still work well (depends on the 'tap' on that matching coil). All the 'hype' about the angle of the radials is just exactly that, 'hype', has nothing to do with radiation angles. Don't get too tied up with it.
- 'Doc

(What's that got to do with the subject? Not much, but it can certainly complicate things unnecessarily.)

 

[BOOTY MONSTER]

hey doc

i was just thinking of easy ways to clean up the looks of the antenna when i put it back up . i really wasnt expecting much difference from using the X as a standoff and wires comming down to it . i may do that again though , it did very well with it and really woke my ears up to where i very rarely could not hear someone that was herd by others within a few miles of my 20 . its very cheap too

 

[JoeDirt]

Hey Booty, thats the same ground plane the Maco base antennas come with! I had 2" of ice buildup on my ground radials last year! I think there really durable!

 

[mackmobile43]

Hey Booty, thats the same ground plane the Maco base antennas come with! I had 2" of ice buildup on my ground radials last year! I think there really durable!

Will that spider hub fit over 1 1/2'' tubing?

 

[Marconi]

Hey BM, this boomer kit is meant to replace the GPK on fiberglass antennas which have a base that is 1.25" in diameter. They will install on any antenna base mount that will accommodate the application.

Hey Booty, thats the same ground plane the Maco base antennas come with!

You and Joe are right, however, if you want to extend the radials out to 105", like the V58, but Joe unless I read the facts wrong, I disagree. I think this boomer kit is shorter than the one on the V58.

 

[JoeDirt]

Hey BM, this boomer kit is meant to replace the GPK on fiberglass antennas which have a base that is 1.25" in diameter. They will install on any antenna base mount that will accommodate the application.



You and Joe are right, however, if you want to extend the radials out to 105", like the V58, but Joe unless I read the facts wrong, I disagree. I think this boomer kit is shorter than the one on the V58.

Your right it said they are 7' elements!

 

[Marconi]

BM, I just posted some modeling work done by a local ham using Eznec demo version. Worldwide DX Amateur Radio Forums - Ham - CB - HF - VHF - UHF
BTW, the models are all listed backward, start with the last-first. Keith modeled a 1/4 and 1/2 wave end fed vertical, as well as several variations of 5/8 wave verticals with different radial lengths and angles. He also modeled the 5/8 with one, two, and 4 radials to see how that affected the RF gain, angle, and patten. He use to have these models on his Website, but the Website was redone and he mostly shows his other interest now. http://home.comcast.net/~nm5k/

He notes that he used the Eznec demo version, which allows very few segments to be used in modeling the elements and therefore the results may be skewed a bit compared to using the Pro version. Some of the models with increased gains shown may be due to his increasing the number of segments he was allow to use per element. For example, notice the nice increases when he modeled the 5/8 wave with only one and two radials he was able to increase the number of segments per element and still stay within the limit---which I think is 15 segments.

Without some type of real world testing, I would only take these results with a grain of salt, but Keith says these models support his real world applications and some other studies along the same lines. So, this gives me pause to think differently about using very long radials rather than shorter radials on the 5/8 wave radiator. I know that Bob85 and Multimode200 found increased signals when increasing the length of horizontal radials on the A99 and the knockoff version 200 used. I wish Keith had modeled the EFHW using radials too. I would like to see what that pattern looks like. This idea with 5/8 wave radiators may be more practical with higher frequency antennas however.

I would like to try out the two radial configuration, it looks easy with what I have here. The only problem is, the current distribution view he shows may well be the model he did in free space, because he does not show the support or feed line. This could mean that the view over average ground is no where near as good as suggested. I have called him several times and left a message that I wanted to talk to him, but he has not returned my calls.