On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 12:16:08 +0000 (UTC), wrote:

Roger wrote:
CB-er in a large van passed next to me. He had one of those stupid fat
antennas with the gigantic "loading coil," and had to have been running

You are not describing a CB antenna.

Actually, he might well be. Perhaps you're lucky enough
not to have any of these people where you live, but in
my neck of the woods, in some lower-socioeconomic-status
neighborhoods, there was a wave of enormous CB antennas

Oh, we have a bunch. Local law enforcement says about a third of the
drivers up here are driving on a suspended or revoked license...or
they never did bother to get one.

They like to run those radios, but I've never seen any of *those* big
antennas :-))

It soulds more like a lot of the ham antennas up here, particularly
for 160 and 75 when they are running 500 to 600 watts. We have a
number of those "mobile porupines" covering 1.8 through 440 or higher.
Back in the 60's I ran one that required guys to keep it from laying
down and pointing to the rear. No big loading coils or top heats, it
was just *tall*.

with HUGE open-wire loading coils at the base, ones that
appeared to be made of 3/8" copper tubing or something
along those lines. No telling if the coils did anything
or were just for show; some of the CBers used high power

Go on e-bay. You can find some huge amps for reasonable prices... if
you don't care about what the signal sounds like. OTOH there's a 2K4
on there at present (2-27) listed as a 10 meter amp. They sure
aren't going to get much out of it driving it with 4 watts at 10db of
gain. :-)) Still they do get hold of much higher powered exciters.

and others poured their 4 watts into these enormous
whips .. I'm seeing fewer of them on the roads these
days but they're still around. :-/

Other than that one Chrysler model with the particular V-6 I've not
run into any problems. Still my 4-Runner doesn't lend itself well to
HF antennas.


_______________________________________________
Ken Kuzenski AC4RD ken . kuzenski at duke .edu
_______________________________________________
All disclaimers apply, see? www.duke.edu/~kuzen001
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com