I was reading an earlier thread about the Radio Shack Discone antenna
and saw a post from Wayne about using a ham stick to replace the top
whip. I am wondering, since I have a couple of discone antennas and an
extra old CB whip, if I trim the whip down, what would be the best
length to cut the whip for optimum 6 meter transmitting on 52.525?
There's no point in cutting it for the lower ssb portion of the band,
since that's all horizontally polarized traffic. And since I have two
discones, I am not worried about any effect it may have on frequencies
beyond 6 meters.
I don't have a ham stick, and since I have a nice long whip I no longer
use, that seems like the best thing for me to use. I'm just unsure of
what effect the rest of the discone will have on the vertical element,
if any, and what length to cut the whip.

I was experimenting with the antenna, switching the longer rods on the
upper horizontal section of the antenna and the shorter rods for the
lower ground plane to see what sort of reception I would get, but
couldn't put it outside due to concerns the elements might break. I
have had trouble with that in the past and had to order new elements.
The antenna is definitely flimsy when it comes to construction, but I
haven't had any antenna outperform it for reception over a wide range
of freqs. As far as performance, it wasn't much different, though it
was slightly better on lower frequencies and not quite as good above 2
meters. And since the antenna would never survive a wind storm set up
like that, there's no way I would put it up on the roof in that
configuration. It is disappointing that they chose to make it so cheap,
but knowing Radio Shack, they probably did it so no one would get the
idea of making such changes and eliminate sales of their other
antennas.
JJ
wz0zzz
seeds-and-weeds.com