Ok, so a friend of mine died, and at his SK auction, I picked up about 6 antenna's for about $10 each.

Some were good and some were not so good...

I have a real friend who repairs my computer for free and he is into the CB radio.
I cannot get him to study and get his amateur radio license and I wanted to get him involved in some type of radio - with the hopes that when he see's how much the CB radio sucks - he would want to study and take the test and get his license and quit fooling around with the CB radio...

His best friend drives truck for the DOT and is a garbage man on the side.
They had boxes of old CB radios, and I found a couple that still put out about 3 watts AM with good modulation.

The person my friend bought his computer shop from was an Amateur Radio Operator. He gave the guy a 48' piece of RG-8 coax and 30' of tower.
The tower was bent and no one wanted it - even though it was not rusted or damaged in any other way.

So to help him out, I gave him the Ringo Ranger so he would at least have an outdoors antenna to play with.

I know a Ringo Ranger is a dummy load - no one has to explain it to me.
But at my house with 120' of Belden 9913F7 - up about 28' off the ground, with ground radials, I was able to compare it to my Solorcon A99 - which is tuned for 10 meters.

The Ringo was about 1 or 2 S units less noisy and I was able to talk on 10 meters to a fellow in the Neatherlands with no problems.

So I gave him the antenna, told him to wait until I got there to help put it together and tune it.
When I got there, he already had it on top of the tower and was playing with it.
The VSWR read 5:1 on channel 19

We tried changing the strap match on the ring and it got down to about 3:1 after we changed the match and the length a couple of times.

So after a hearty supper - 4 hours after starting this fiasco, we took it down, put it on a piece of pipe out in the yard.
Took a second Ringo Ranger and combined the two - to make it 11'6 long.

Origionally it was around 9'

I got the match down flat to about 2:1 everywhere from channel 1 to 40!

That is as low as it would go.

I checked the coax and there was no shorts and I used a coax calculator and even with a .66 velocity factor - the brand and type is unknown - and I didn't have a working computer at the site - the length for a piece of coax in multiples of half wavelengths would only be somewhere in the neighborhood of being 2 feet less then what the coax is. Which isn't a big deal, except that he plans on adding another 20' of tower, sometime in the future.

I could give him my old Solorcon A99 and put up my new Solorcon A99 - but I am afraid that if I give away my good antenna, I might have some problems with the Solorcon...

I do not have an antenna analyzer - but I could borrow one..
Yesterday was an exception - because it was a holiday and no one was around to ask if I could borrow theirs.

I know the Ringo needs ground radials and I am working on doing that for him also.
But I am wondering - if there might be another solution to the problem...

I think 11'6 is somewhere around .33 of one wavelength on channel 19....

I usually don't ask these kinds of questions - because usually I have the answer...

If a person had more then 3 watts - loosing half of it between the coax and the antenna mis match wouldn't be a problem...

As it is - he doesn't have a working home phone and I can't call him and he doesn't have internet so I can't email him and there is a hill between his place and my place - about 7 miles away - max and I can't hear him....

His mobile also has a 3:1 mismatch and he put a 104 inch whip on it and is able to talk about half way between his house and my house with his mobile - on the side of a jeep about 3' off the ground...

I have a legal 4 watt CB radio - which normally talks about 12 miles in all directions.

I am looking for idea's on how to make the Ringo better - if that is possible.

Maybe possible lengths to try - only I am afraid that if it gets too long - it will fall apart. The base is already wobbly from taking it up and down the tower 25 times last night.

I don't know if there is a way to tighten the base to the first section of antenna.

I would be willing to try to make it 18' long if that would be an improvement.

Any idea's?