The price of admission.
http://www.worldwidedx.com/home-brew-mods/41252-failed-experiments.html#post173073
-
You can now help support WorldwideDX when you shop on Amazon at no additional cost to you! Simply follow this Shop on Amazon link first and a portion of any purchase is sent to WorldwideDX to help with site costs.
The price of admission.
http://www.worldwidedx.com/home-brew-mods/41252-failed-experiments.html#post173073
HiDef you were pretty well informed, non-the-less, back in 1976, at the tender age of 13, to be experimenting at the level you were even though your work fail to be productive.
I might have posted this already, but this past summer I did some comparative work on several vertical antennas that I have. My original goal was to see if I could duplicate the results of some work I did several years ago---adding radials to a Starduster design I call my Marconi 6X. I was not successful with the Starduster due to a mistake in my thinking during the days of testing, but in a later process where I installed 6 radials on an insulated A99, the results were quite remarkable I think.
All of my Signal Reports are available here on the forum in my album. Just click on my handle and open my profile and you will see my albums. I think I also have an album there that has some of my Antenna Work Sheets showing my antenna tuning and the VA1 analyzer Bandwidth curves and the SWR Bandwidth curves as back up. There are lots of variables when comparing antennas, so these reports are simply what they are and nothing more.
I compared my A99 using several configurations with insulating and adding radials and it made a positive difference per these reports. When I added radials, first three radials horizontal, and then three more slanted down at about 35* degrees, I saw improved gains in each case.
I also believe that adding radials to a GPK on a vertical antenna can be effective if you can get some current to flow in the radials.
B
BOOTY MONSTER
Guest
hidef , its not a case of not listening to you or ignoring your suggestions or even thinking youre wrong . its just that 4 ground radials seem easier to add on securely than 3 with my current homebrewing abilities . i do appreciate youre comments and suggestions 
.
i would like to make up some sort of mast raising and lowering setup where i can easily raise and lower the antenna myself . i have an idea in my head how to do it , just need to get around to doing it . anyhow ..... id like to experiment with having 4 sloped vs. 4 horozontal ground elements as well as both together for a total of 8 1/4 wl ground elements . id also like to try my homebrew without any ground elements , just use the mast like a imax does . just connecting the bottom leg of the tuning ring to the mast would keep it clean and simple for that one .
.i would like to make up some sort of mast raising and lowering setup where i can easily raise and lower the antenna myself . i have an idea in my head how to do it , just need to get around to doing it . anyhow ..... id like to experiment with having 4 sloped vs. 4 horozontal ground elements as well as both together for a total of 8 1/4 wl ground elements . id also like to try my homebrew without any ground elements , just use the mast like a imax does . just connecting the bottom leg of the tuning ring to the mast would keep it clean and simple for that one .
13-1/2.
I've seen your charts. That's a lot of good scientific work.
Thanks for sharing.
hidef , its not a case of not listening to you or ignoring your suggestions or even thinking youre wrong . its just that 4 ground radials seem easier to add on securely than 3 with my current homebrewing abilities . i do appreciate youre comments and suggestions
i would like to make up some sort of mast raising and lowering setup where i can easily raise and lower the antenna myself . i have an idea in my head how to do it , just need to get around to doing it . anyhow ..... id like to experiment with having 4 sloped vs. 4 horozontal ground elements as well as both together for a total of 8 1/4 wl ground elements . id also like to try my homebrew without any ground elements , just use the mast like a imax does . just connecting the bottom leg of the tuning ring to the mast would keep it clean and simple for that one .
4 ARE easier than 3 without a hub.
Get a telescoping tower. You only go around once.
Thanks HiDef, but I can't claim there is anything scientific about my comparison reports. They are not intended to be scientific, maybe real world results though.
What I do is just spend some time monitoring and recording what the RX meter shows when these guys are on the air. It would be nice to do some TX signal reports, but I don't do TX comparisons. The local guys here would fuss. If I could do TX signals with one or two fixed stations, I would likely get arguments that the sampling was not large enough, not far enough out, or to close and who wants to sit around testing while I make little adjustments like tuning or modifying the antenna.
I use a couple of different radios along the way, but for the most part I only used the analog meter on the Galaxy 2547. There is nothing special about the analog meter, but it is easier to read.
I underline the radio used at the top of each report. Sometimes I see a little difference in readings between the two Kenwood radios and the Galaxy with maybe the Galaxy showing a .5 to 1 S-unit better signal.
The + and - notations you see are noted when I sense a little more or a little less signal and I use this when the needle goes between marks on the radio.The values over S9 are shown as 10,11,12,13, etc.
Something else to consider is that I really can't always know when my guys move their beams, change radios, change antennas, or turn their amp on/off.
There are also times when different signal values are due to changing conditions.
Booty i am glad that you have stated Base Antennas. I have played with a lot of various mobile antennas on semi trucks. And yes a lot of drivers do point them forward. On mine ( attached to a vise grips ) i have to point mine forward. I don't like going through the middle of Indy on I-70 and whacking those low 14' bridges, so i lean mine forward. I would not think the top hat would help my situation i would knock it off at the first tree or low bridge. I run a Bronco Buster that comes from the Monkey Made family. This has the round coil. My bandwidth is great i have a 1.7 swr on 26.105 to a 1.7 on 27.855 to a 1.1 on 27.185 But i am always in the market to try a new antenna my next project will be the 10k pedator antenna.
Old thread, I know. Sorry, couldn't help myself.
Without cap hat, antenna resonant at 27.185mhz with 57 wraps of copper.
With cap hat, same antenna resonant at 19.205mhz and after removing 26 wraps of copper became resonant at 27.105mhz
30 turns of copper were removed thanks to the cap hat. (Less coil losses)
Before tuning
After tuning
Notice much less copper..(and less coil losses)
Without cap hat, antenna resonant at 27.185mhz with 57 wraps of copper.
With cap hat, same antenna resonant at 19.205mhz and after removing 26 wraps of copper became resonant at 27.105mhz
30 turns of copper were removed thanks to the cap hat. (Less coil losses)
Before tuning
After tuning
Notice much less copper..(and less coil losses)
Last edited: