On Jul 17, 6:37*pm, "Stan Cooper" wrote:
Hello I hope I'm not intruding by asking for advice on a CB antenna but I
figured this would be the group to ask about such things for the straight
scoop. At any rate I'm considering a store bought beam with both vertical
and horizontal polarization and my choices are limited to these two below..
(not many being manufactured anymore)

The Maco has a 16 foot boom and an advertised gain of 12.5 db, while the JO
GUNN has an 8 foot boom and an advertised gain of 14.5 db. I know there is a
lot of smoke and mirrors involved with advertised gains and so my question
is...is it possible for the JO GUNN to perform as well as the Maco antenna?

The GUNN is of much stronger construction and a smaller windload so I'd
rather put it up, but the short boom makes me wonder if the gain and
rejection numbers are suspect.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, antenna choices, price tags and urls
below.

73
Stan

MACO-Shooting Star $279.95http://www.mpaudio1.com/Macobeamantennas2.html

JO GUNN 3 + 3 STAR $382.00http://tinyurl.com/6hzteu

Oh btw, I'll be tower mounting it about 40' from the ground and turning it
with a hamIV rotator.

Thanks again.

Why buy either. There are plenty of plans for beams around. It is my
opinion that building one from scratch is not much more difficult that
putting one togetther from the box. In the process you will learn how
boom length, element spacing, numer of elements all come together to
give you a good antenna, If you can download the assembly manual you
will probably have enough detail for building your own.

Back in the 70s I belonged to a CB club. A group of us started
building antennas for ourselves and other club members. We purchased
our aluminum at an extrusion plant. By going through there reject pile
were were able to get the tubing for pennies on the pound. We placed
the tubing in a jig and was able to cut nearly all the pieces(even for
large booms) to length with one pass of a radial arm saw. Nearly all
that was left was to put the parts in a cardboard box with
instructions and a hardware list.

This was a great club with over a thousand members. We did not
tolerate illegal or obnoxous operation. The penalty was expulsion from
the club and you would be placed on the list where other members just
wouldnt talk to you. On the other hand benifits of belonging to the
club were considerable. Education Inexpensive antennas and equipment
lots of help and fellowship and numerous family oriented events
throughout the year. The group as a whole was a huge pool of talent
for just about anything you could think of and we helped each in a lot
more ways than just CB. A model for even the best ham clubs I have
seen.

Jimmie

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