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Anyone still use a Antron-99 for 17-10 meters?

SMILEX2692002

SMILEX2692002

Well-Known Member
Oct 26, 2011
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Thinking about buying a Antron-99 for 17-10 meters use here at my house.
Not sure where I would mount it due to my tower being full with 2 different beam antennas.
Maybe a tripod on the roof? Not really wanting to go this route though.
Or a mast from the ground extending up? Leaning more towards this option.
My house is only a 1 story so getting the antenna over the peak of the roof is not an issue. Although it may only be like 30ft above ground to the bottom of the antenna.
I want the Antron-99 due to its ability to work from 17-10 meters.
I have a Imax 2000 here that was damaged during a storm. It used to work well.
I think the smaller Antron-99 may hold up better to high winds vs the longer and heavier Imax 2000.
The Imax 2000 used to be at the top of my tower before I had the beams installed. The middle section snapped in half due to high winds.

I have also considered the Maco BA-1 antenna due to the fact it will mount off the side of my tower. I believe it will only work for 10 and 11 meters though. Not to mention it is almost double the price of a Antron-99 antenna.
 

A99 will work 10 through 15 no tuner required, will need tuner on 17.

Mount it on a stand off on the tower should work fine.
 
Last edited:
wavrider said:
A99 will work 10 through 15 no tuner required, will need tuner on 17.

Mount it on a stand off on the tower should work fine.
Click to expand...

I could get a couple of these and a stick of mast and mount off my tower.
Copper Electronics, Inc.
But it looks like its only 1 ft of arm going away from the tower. Not sure how well the antenna would work being so close to the tower.
I also think buying two of the arms is to much to spend for mounting an antenna like this.
Seems cheaper and easier to buy some mast and erect the antenna up from the ground away from my tower.
I just want to get the antenna in free space and over the roof line of my house.
 
Lil'Yeshua said:
Tower Mounts, Side Mount Kits | TESSCO 800 472 7373 ?
I've been wanting a side mount for my tower for another antenna. Some tubing,clamps,mounting plates will probably do the job.
Towers - Free Shipping on Orders Over $99 at DX Engineering


ROHN 25G Side Arm Mounts UHF25G - Free Shipping on Orders Over $99 at DX Engineering
Click to expand...

I made a stand off for my diamond dual bander...two four foot pieces of angle iron and 6 ubolts. Drilled some holes and used 4-5 foot of some old mast pipe I had laying around. Works good and you could hang off it if you wanted to...
 
Still thinking it will be easier to construct some type of mast from the ground and raise it up.
I will be doing this by myself so looking for a easy install.
I only need to go around 30' to get over the peak of my 1 story roof.
 
I use one on about 10 feet of pipe that is sitting on the ground. 10 -17 meters with a tuner. Using it for psk31 at about 20 watts. No problems into Europe or S. America.
 
I still have my 99 mounted above the chimney on a Radio Shake pole & chimney mount that is connected to my old CB in the kitchen mounted under the overhead cabinet that used to be our family mobile phone service before cell phones became popular. (showing my age now) That was also before I got my ham license. I'm the only one in the family
that still has a CB in their vehicle today.
 
I am actually just fired up my FT-897 on my other bench and that I use on a A99 for 17-10 meters ;)
 
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Once winter is over I will go to Home depot and look for some conduit to construct a mast from the ground. If I can get the antenna 30 feet in the air I would be happy. I don't want to risk the stress on my chimney by using it for a mount or like the idea of putting a tripod in my roof.
Also when I had my Imax 2000 I never changed the tuning rings and it worked for 17-10 meters. Is this the same for the Antron 99?
 
Dunno about the A99, but the Imax2K works 10-17m. Works fine w/o trimming a thing. Of course, a tuner is used to clean up the SWR; but really only needed on 17m. Made my first amateur DX contact on 17m to Ireland from the West Coast some years ago. It didn't work great on 17m; but it did work. However, 10-15m does work very well. Not bad at all for the small expenditure - IMO . . .
 
About fixing an antenna to a chimney, or using a tripod on a roof, I sort of feel the same way, I'm not too enthused about it. Some chimneys/roofs can handle that just dandy, some can't. A lot of that depends on the antenna to be mounted, smaller ones shouldn't be a problem, larger ones certainly can be. You decide.
'Skootching' (fancy technical word) an antenna to some frequency/band it wasn't designed for is also certainly possible. But that always involves a loss of efficiency. There are two aspects that you have to consider with any/all antennas, resonance and impedance matching. Resonance involves how efficiently an antenna radiates. Impedance matching deals with the efficient transfer of power from the transmitter to the antenna (SWR). A third aspect is the radiation pattern produced by an antenna of some particular -physical- length. Any of those three things can be 'adjusted' to make a particular antenna work. How you go about doing that adjusting will determine how -well- that antenna works. And the 'bad' part in that is that all of those thingys are frequency dependent. That means that if/when you change frequencies all three of those thingys are affected, typically it get's 'worse' to some degree.
The 'why' of that isn't 'simple' at all. It means that to really understand that 'why' you are going to have to do some learning about a 'nasty' thingy called impedance and reactance (and several other things, but those are the 'hard' parts).
Both the 'A99' and the 'Imaxx' antennas manuals tell you a little about adjusting the antennas length for resonance. Not many people ever do that. Oh well.
Those three thingys, resonance, impedance matching and radiation pattern shapes all affect each other. Change one of them and the other two will always be affected in some way. It may not be much, but there will always be a change in them. Getting to the point where you can sort of predict that change is the goal. Remembering that is the important part, then you get to 'fix' it!
- 'Doc
 

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