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Base Antenna Coax length,Best Coax and best Antenna under $250.00

Thanks

bob85 said:
in our multiple tests at different locations this seems not to be the case, even as low as 14ft of mast where the gm is supposed to not work very well the only antennas that have outperformed the gainmaster are the i-10k by a small margin and the vector/sigma4 style antennas by a larger margin,
the imax and a99 are behind for noise and performance in our tests, 1 wavelength is high enough,
my only reservation with the gainmaster is we have not yet had 100mph+ winds since the gainmaster became available to see how durable they are in real wind,
we have had 70+mph but that don't count as high wind in my book, its not until we get 100+ that the men are sorted from the boys,

good luck with whatever you decide to buy;)
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing that issue up. Think I'll get me a Gain Master'
 
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For the record,when Hugo came through,we had 62 mile per hour with along with 93 mph gusts. My radio shack end fed half wave dipole was mounted 67' high on ten foot sections of r/s heavy duty mast pole mounted on a heavy duty r/s wall mount that was lag screwed into the top of a 18' grade 8 telephone pole I got for free and hand dug the hole for it. I had guy wires at the top of the mast right below the antenna base and another set of guy wires halfway down. So when Hugo came through,the guy wires failed. The next day I examined the damage. It looked like the top guy wires failed and the wind spun the mast around and threw it all down cracking the lower half of the antenna along with the mast section looking like the stripe on a candy cane. I think what got it was a mini tornado that spawned because of the pecan tree nearby that was partially shielded by the garage but was spun around and split in two. If the GainMaster can bend with the wind then it has a good chance in high winds.
 
P.S. and everyone else who had a vertical antenna mounted just above a tower were all leaning tower of pisa's. I was on a job in Charlotte and found a brand new frisbee with Myrtle Beach silk screened on in the back yard. We had sea gulls in Charlotte for the first time ever. Charlotte is 200 miles inland.
 
the only antenna of mine that came down was a double skinned bottom tube sigma4 on 73ft of guyed mast, we had 110mph gusts that broke a guy, the top 43ft or so of mast plus antenna broke off, the sigma4 survived.
 
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Just a thought here. What about using a 108" length of 1.25" dia. galvanized plumbing pipe as the negative part of a 11 meter 1/2 wave dipole. Use a MFJ Enterprises 108" stainless steel whip for the top radiator. Screw on a 1.25 galvanized end cap with a 1/2" hole drilled in it. Install a heavy-duty whip mount in the end cap with the whip screwed into it. Clamp it with a plastic sleeve on the bottom section to insulate it from the mount? Or to save on weight,use rigid electrical conduit with either a T-box at the center junction that allows a whip mount to be installed or weld a mounting plate on top of the bottom section? The coax would feed up through the bottom section to the feed point at the whip mount. My tower is made from 1/2"and 3/4" rigid electrical conduit welded together and is strong and has a limited but certain amount of springiness to it. Just thinking. Also,I grew up watching my dad make stuff. I guess I got the same ingenuity.
 
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Floppy mast

Captain Kilowatt said:
Ummmmm.......NO. In that case you should never mount one on a tower or on your house etc. just on a crappy floppy mast. The mast did not even bend. The antenna broke completely off. Defective unit? Maybe. Crappy anyway? Yes.
Click to expand...

I get queasy just looking at those YouTube vids showing the GainMaster moving all over the place. One of the vids I posted(the negative exposure one)showed a GainMaster mounted on a mast that swayed with the antenna and not contributing to the stress on the antenna at the choke coil.
 
1/2 wave dipole

I could also make a 1/4 wave dipole using my R/S 102" stainless steel whip and either buying a 108" stainless steel whip from MFJ Enterprises and cutting that to 104" and mounting it either horizontally or in a L shape or get a 3/8 metal tube for a horizontal element. Endless possibilities.
 

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