OK, it's 3 years later and I'm posting.

I just assembled a new Cushcraft Ringo Antenna AR-10 for use with the 10 Meter FM Amateur Repeater Band.

I set the Antenna length for 15 feet per the Cushcraft chart, plopped it on a temporary short grounded metal pole in my back yard and tuned it up with a SWR Meter for minimum SWR at the Frequency of the Repeater inputs (29.500 to 29.580 MHz) which are 100 KHz below the repeater outputs.

The tuning bar was set per the 7" dimension described on the AR-10 manual and "OMG," I had the thing tuned up in 30 minutes. Here's the results:

29.600 MHz - 1.17:1
29.500 MHz - 1.06:1
29.400 MHz - 1.02:1
20.300 MHz - 1.03:1
29.200 MHz - 1.10:1
29.100 MHz - 1.19:1

You can see the resonance "peak" at 20.400 MHz.

It's a really easy antenna to tune as the practicality of the tuning bar (avoiding any Impedance-centric discussion) is that the turning bar simply lengthens or shortens the total length of the antenna. That's it.
The coax open tuning stubb arrived at 16.5 inches and I left it that way.

I was previously using a 1/4" loaded mobile whip with a wonderful counterpoise (My house-wrapping metal rain gutter) and the AR-10 antenna sitting at ground level is hearing and talking to stations previously unheard. Yes, I realize that the "performance improvement" I've experiencing might just be an "uptick" in 10 Meter propagation. But hey! It's a 1/2" wave vertical antenna - It ain't that complicated.

My only problem with the antenna is that the birds seem to like to sit on the gamma loop which is a bit weak so I might try to support the loop with some kind of non-metalic support. Ed/KB6DRN - Central California

wrote in message
...

OK, it's 3 years later and I'm posting.

I just assembled a new Cushcraft Ringo Antenna AR-10 for use with the 10
Meter FM Amateur Repeater Band.

I set the Antenna length for 15 feet per the Cushcraft chart, plopped it on
a temporary short grounded metal pole in my back yard and tuned it up with
a SWR Meter for minimum SWR at the Frequency of the Repeater inputs (29.500
to 29.580 MHz) which are 100 KHz below the repeater outputs.

The tuning bar was set per the 7" dimension described on the AR-10 manual
and "OMG," I had the thing tuned up in 30 minutes. Here's the results:

29.600 MHz - 1.17:1
29.500 MHz - 1.06:1
29.400 MHz - 1.02:1
20.300 MHz - 1.03:1
29.200 MHz - 1.10:1
29.100 MHz - 1.19:1

You can see the resonance "peak" at 20.400 MHz.

It's a really easy antenna to tune as the practicality of the tuning bar
(avoiding any Impedance-centric discussion) is that the turning bar simply
lengthens or shortens the total length of the antenna. That's it.
The coax open tuning stubb arrived at 16.5 inches and I left it that way.

I was previously using a 1/4" loaded mobile whip with a wonderful
counterpoise (My house-wrapping metal rain gutter) and the AR-10 antenna
sitting at ground level is hearing and talking to stations previously
unheard. Yes, I realize that the "performance improvement" I've
experiencing might just be an "uptick" in 10 Meter propagation. But hey!
It's a 1/2" wave vertical antenna - It ain't that complicated.

My only problem with the antenna is that the birds seem to like to sit on
the gamma loop which is a bit weak so I might try to support the loop with
some kind of non-metalic support. Ed/KB6DRN - Central California

Excellent. I have a 2 meter version and it works quite well.

And thanks for posting an antenna thread

Wayne
W5GIE/6
Redlands, CA

On Tue, 17 Feb 2015 08:35:07 -0800 (PST), wrote:

OK, it's 3 years later and I'm posting.

I just assembled a new Cushcraft Ringo Antenna AR-10 for use with the 10 Meter FM Amateur Repeater Band.
...........

Meter propagation. But hey! It's a 1/2" wave vertical antenna - It ain't that complicated.

My only problem with the antenna is that the birds seem to like to sit on the gamma loop which is a bit weak so I might try to support the loop with some kind of non-metalic support. Ed/KB6DRN - Central California

using afterburners helps.
Birds don't like HF.

w.