Thanks Dave.

That was an excellent post. It's interesting that I've read testimonials
on eHam and other web pages that claim 15 to 20 years of service with the
G7-144 with no complaints. Then there are some that have had some issues.

The G6-144 is a bit more attractive to me right now due to the lower
price and being about 2/3 of the length of the G7. Interestingly, the G6
literature (available at http://www.dxengineering.com) says, "FCC
accepted for Repeater application at 6db gain based on EIA Standard
RS-239: gain compared to 1/2 wave dipole." I've never heard of antennas
being "FCC accepted for Repeater application" before. So now I'm curious
whether the G6 may be more rugged than the G7. At the very least there
won't be so much aluminum swinging in the breeze.

I am looking for antenna for our repeater. We tried pressing a
commercial antenna tuned for 155 MHz into service, but it just hasn't
worked out as we have severe desense. Its mounting is also far from
optimal. The calculated SWR at the antenna is approximately 1.8:1.

We were checking things over today and everything looks good when the
duplexer is terminated into a 50 ohm load, but varying levels of noise
exist at the RX frequency when the antenna is connected. It is
definitely our system as the spectrum is clear when the repeater TX is
off. It was too windy today to climb to the top of the grain elevator
leg the antenna is on to check at the end of the hardline with a
wattmeter and dummy load.

I like the idea of the G6 as it appears easy to handle and easy to
mount. We are limited by the framework of the structure and we have to
avoid having anything that would get in the way of the employees or
jeopardize their safety. Also, it needs to be safe for us to work with
as well.

The G6 appears to be two 5/8 wave radiators fed with Hustler's fiberglass
encased coil assembly. I have seen that the antenna is about 10 feet
tall, weighs about 7 pounds, and has a surface area of 1.4 sq ft. We can
mount a mast easily on the structure that will support a lightweight gain
antenna like the G6. A DB-224 would be nice, but it requires
considerably more in the way of mounting and manpower resources to do it
correctly.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

73, de Nate

--

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds,
the pessimist fears this is true."