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7 ft firestick 5/8 wave?

I use the MFJ "Ham Stick" and they work really well. I carry seven or eight antennas with me and have quick connect mounts on the bottom. From 80 meters to 10 meters and have no problems with them at all. Once they are tuned, my auto tuner in my Icom 746 makes only minor adjustments for flat SWR. The 80 meter has a very large amount of wire wrapped around the core and the six meter has very little. The lower the frequency the more wire they pack on. All of these antennas end up being 7'11" long with the stinger installed. There is some variance in total length but not much.
http://worldwidedx.com/gallery/albu...foot-long-antennas-in-a-truck-with-6-bed.565/
 
Onelasttime said:
You know I am a bit biased against Firestick because they hype their product so much or used too. They have not done anything to advance their product design since I first owned a FireStick in 1991.

I will give them this the make a product that looks nice. They have used quality materials as far as I am aware for ever.

I would like a 7 foot antenna with a tunable tip been asking for one of those since 1991 at least once a year since 1991.No one wants to dig out wire adn trim that is just stupid in 2016 to have to dig out wire and cut it!

Bandwidth has always been rather narrow and power rating have always been a bit small.

In 22 years you would think they would have developed something to compete with air wound external coil antenna's!!!
Click to expand...

7 foot skipshooter. I put my super trucker coils in the corner of the garage. I ran a 6 foot for about a year until I found a 7'.
 
w9cll said:
I have found they work well 20 meters and below, above 20 and they fall short compared the screwdriver I have.
Click to expand...
I don't doubt that the screw driver works better, but I bought everything including the magmount for just under $140.00. The 10 and 11 meters work well and the only short fall I have seen is on six meters band width is not real wide. But these are the only mobile antennas I have used so I don't have a better reference point.
 
Tallman said:
I don't doubt that the screw driver works better, but I bought everything including the magmount for just under $140.00. The 10 and 11 meters work well and the only short fall I have seen is on six meters band width is not real wide. But these are the only mobile antennas I have used so I don't have a better reference point.
Click to expand...
True a screwdriver antenna isn't significantly better especially on the lower bands, but they can't be beat for being a do all single antenna that is remotely tuned for all HF and the 6m bands down to 40 meters or even down to 160 for the larger models.

Personally I can't see 160m worthwhile on a mobile, but they can work there.

Try one and I'll bet you like it!
 
fourstringburn said:
True a screwdriver antenna isn't significantly better especially on the lower bands, but they can't be beat for being a do all single antenna that is remotely tuned for all HF and the 6m bands down to 40 meters or even down to 160 for the larger models.
Personally I can't see 160m worthwhile on a mobile, but they can work there.
Try one and I'll bet you like it!
Click to expand...
If I could find one for as little as I paid for the antennas I have I would buy one.
One big plus I have is I can take my magmount down and no one knows I have radio gear on board.
 
Tallman said:
If I could find one for as little as I paid for the antennas I have I would buy one.
One big plus I have is I can take my magmount down and no one knows I have radio gear on board.
Click to expand...
Good points, but consider the costs if you wanted mono band antennas for all the bands 6 Thru 40m, you would spend almost as much as a Little Tarheel HP screwdriver, And have remote tuning to cover all the bandwidth 6 thru 40m and even 60m with a cap hat or longer whip, where mono band antennas narrow up below 20m requiring retuning or another antenna stored in the trunk.

A Little Tarheel is light enough for a magmount. It weighs less than 2lbs.

I did the mono band set-up before with Hustler resonators and tri-band mast adapters which worked but also required work maintaining it.

After going to the screwdriver, I never looked back!

Just something to consider…
 
Expand this to see all of the answer
fourstringburn said:
Good points, but consider the costs if you wanted mono band antennas for all the bands 6 Thru 40m, you would spend almost as much as a Little Tarheel HP screwdriver, And have remote tuning to cover all the bandwidth 6 thru 40m and even 60m with a cap hat or longer whip, where mono band antennas narrow up below 20m requiring retuning or another antenna stored in the trunk.

Not even close in the same price range, $399.00 shipping not included. Plus you still will need a controller for it. Add and additional $140.00 to $289.00. The antennas I have less than $140.00 shipping included. The auto tuner in my IC-746 and my other radios tune them flat very quickly if band width is a problem.

A Little Tarheel is light enough for a magmount. It weighs less than 2lbs.

True.

I did the mono band set-up before with Hustler resonators and tri-band mast adapters which worked but also required work maintaining it.

I don't know anything about those, but I'm not using those items.

After going to the screwdriver, I never looked back!

Just something to consider…
Click to expand...

I had to get in to amateur radio quickly and on the cheap and these were the best solutions for me at the time.
All in all it works just fine, I make contacts all the time and I do not run any linears.
 
I had a 7' Firestik decades ago, may be different winding style now, but I replaced the 102" atop the Super Big Stick and big improvement getting through the rolling hills near the CA coast with the 7'.
I figured it must have a higher TOA than the 102" to make it so much better up & out of the canyon I was in.
 
Do you remember what the length was for the top element on the Super Big Stick?

And was this antenna 2 elements or 3?

I will see what Eznec predicts for this old antenna with the mod you suggest.
 
Marconi said:
Do you remember what the length was for the top element on the Super Big Stick?

And was this antenna 2 elements or 3?

I will see what Eznec predicts for this old antenna with the mod you suggest.
Click to expand...
It was a 2-piece about 17' total, I fried the base sometime later when I added the matching FL-2100B, but I still have the fiberglass top and it measures right about 103".
 

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