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Ringo Ranger Problems
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? |
Ringo Ranger Problems
To be blunt with you, Get the instructions for it. The thing is suspose to
be about 18 feet long. Not 9 feet or 11 feet 6 inches. "Channel Jumper" wrote in message ... 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? -- Channel Jumper |
Ringo Ranger Problems
On 9/4/2012 6:23 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
To be blunt with you, Get the instructions for it. The thing is suspose to be about 18 feet long. Not 9 feet or 11 feet 6 inches. He is also mislabeling the names of the various antennas, and makes it hard to tell what the heck he really has.. A Ringo Ranger is a VHF or UHF antenna, and is a twin element collinear vertical. It has a phasing stub type deal between the two elements. The 2 meter version happens to be about 8.75 ft tall. A Ringo is a single element halfwave vertical. And Cushcraft does/did make a 10m version. It's the AR-10, and is appx 16 feet tall. So I'm starting to wonder if they are using a 2 meter antenna for 10 meters.. ?? It would be fairly easy to convert the RR to a 10m ringo.. Extend to 16 feet, and you would need to use a larger gamma loop, and a bit longer piece of coax for the capacitor. I've made them before, and used 1/4 inch copper tubing to make the gamma loop. BTW, a 10 meter ringo does not require radials. But it can be further improved by adding a decoupling section a 1/4 wave down from the feed point. I used a union to ground the shield to the metal mast at that point, and had three 1/4 wave radials. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
"NM5K" wrote in message ... BTW, a 10 meter ringo does not require radials. But it can be further improved by adding a decoupling section a 1/4 wave down from the feed point. I used a union to ground the shield to the metal mast at that point, and had three 1/4 wave radials. The big selling point when they first came out was no radials needed. I am not sure as it has been a long time ago, but was thinking the origional Ringo was for the CB because of no radials and later moved to other bands. Then it was found that on the vhf bands the signal went up instead of out to the horizon. That is when the extra piece of coax was added about 1/4 wavelength below the antenna and radials added. From all I have seen, the Ringo was one of the beter selling antennas and it did not work very well. Same as for the 11 element beams that CC made. Several items like that turned me off from CC years ago. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
On Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:52:38 +0000, Channel Jumper wrote:
But I am wondering - if there might be another solution to the problem... Any idea's? An ordinary wire dipole strung vertically will give better SWR's than you got. It can be tweaked to give 1.5: 1 worst case across the band. When I find the dimensions I'll post them. |
Thanks guys - I found the answer this morning as soon as I looked at the picture of one on the web site...
The seller of the antenna was dead - I couldn't ask him any questions. His son - was only interested in the money from the sale and couldn't tell me anything because he wasn't a ham like his dad. The antenna was a 6 meter antenna ( AR -6 ) - hence this antenna would need to be about 224 inches long to work on 11 meters - not 9' Trying to make a 1/2 wave antenna work on a quarter wave size throws everything off balance. 11'6 - did show a match, with a 2:1 SWR on 11 meters.. But the reactive and inductive are probably all wrong... This means I need to add another 7' to the antenna to get it to work on 27.200 MHz... ( 224 inches long )... All I would need to do is figure out how long to make the stub match and I would be set! For some reason ( a 6 meter antenna will receive a little and talk a little on 10 meters - ok) and will tune up on 10 meters if it is the right length and if a internal antenna tuner is used. It doesn't mean that it is resonant - it just means that it will tune up and work a little with the transceiver. For some reason the 6 meter Ringo - ( if not properly adjusted in length ) will not transmit on 6 meters - it is a (600 KHz) only antenna - not very broad banded... When I tried it at my house on 50.125 MHz and 52.900 Mhz - it would not tune with my internal tuner in my Kenwood TS 590 - the transceiver tuner said (bad match) in CW... It sounds like someone shuffling cards when it is running... But it would tune just fine on 10 meters - 28.400 - so I figured it was a 10 meter antenna... I didn't get the instructions with the antenna - and I didn't look online to see which model it was.... That was my fault... It makes a real good dummy load though... Thanks guys.. A Horizontal Dipole won't work at this location - because the op wants to talk to truck drivers and his neighbors and the mis match between horizontal and vertical would be so much he might as well not put anything up and just hold the coax with 3 watts transmit power... |
Ringo Ranger Problems
On 9/5/2012 10:01 AM, Channel Jumper wrote:
This means I need to add another 7' to the antenna to get it to work on 27.200 MHz... All I would need to do is figure out how long to make the stub match and I would be set! About 16.5-17 inches long with coax that has a .66 VF. It's not too critical. I'm not sure if the 6m ringo has a large enough gamma loop.. Maybe, if you used most of it.. If it won't match, you could make a larger loop from copper tubing. I make the loops from the tubing, then I hammer down the ends of the tubing so they are flat, and then drill the holes in the flat part so it can be attached to the mounting hardware. With a little tweaking of the tap location, you should be able to get a near perfect match. Don't bother trying to trim the coax cap.. It's not that critical.. For most 10m half waves, appx 50 pf is the usual value used. And that cap is actually optional.. Note that the 6m version did not use a coax cap. But I've always used one on the 10m ringos I've built. I think it makes the tuning a little less touchy. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
I cannot imagine what your problem is with the 2 meter CushCraft Ringo
Ranger. I have had the same one in service off and on since the late 70's. Easy to mount, easy to match, physically durable, priced real close to the cost of the aluminum. The J-Pole is popular now days but is not near the performer that the Ringo is. I have both! The Ringo on a tower is not a good idea because it brings up too many repeaters on a given frequency. Bad operating manners! As far as the 12 element CushCraft Yagis are concerned I have a 440 & 2 M models and have found them to work just like the modeling programs indicate. There will be a "lump" on the pattern that is not shown in the model, presumably radiation from the Gamma match. There are ways to improve on CushCraft products (Stainless Hardware!) but in the long haul, you generally get your moneys worth. I am sorry you have had a bad experience with the Ringo but I don't think you really explained your problems. A little more information would be a big help. There are a lot of really smart and helpful guys lurking here who have been very generous to me over the years. Please back up & try again... On Wed, 5 Sep 2012 15:01:02 +0000, Channel Jumper wrote: Thanks guys - I found the answer this morning as soon as I looked at the picture of one on the web site... The seller of the antenna was dead - I couldn't ask him any questions. His son - was only interested in the money from the sale and couldn't tell me anything because he wasn't a ham like his dad. The antenna was a 6 meter antenna - hence this antenna would need to be about 224 inches long to work on 10 meters - not 9' How ever - 138 inches divided by two would be 69 inches which would show some kind of match - but not the one desired. 5'9 x 2 = 11'6 which did show a match with a 2:1 SWR This means I need to add another 7' to the antenna to get it to work on 27.200 MHz... All I would need to do is figure out how long to make the stub match and I would be set! For some reason a 6 meter antenna will receive on 10 meters - ok and will tune up on 10 meters if it is the right length and if a antenna tuner is used. For some reason the 6 meter Ringo - if not properly adjusted will not transmit on 6 meters - it is a 1 MHz only antenna - not very broad banded... When I tried it at my house on 50.125 MHz and 52.900 Mhz - it would not tune with my internal tuner in my Kenwood TS 590 - said bad match... But it would tune just fine on 10 meters - 28.400 - so I figured it was a 10 meter antenna... I didn't get the instructions with the antenna - and I didn't look online to see which model it was.... That was my fault... Makes a real good dummy load though... Thanks guys.. John Ferrell W8CCW |
Ringo Ranger Problems
On 9/5/2012 4:17 PM, NM5K speculated:
About 16.5-17 inches long with coax that has a .66 VF. It's not too critical. Hummm.. Actually, being as the coax is used for capacitance, the pf per foot would probably be more pertinent than the VF.. Seems like RG-8 is about 26 pf per foot??? I fergot.. And am too lazy to look it up.. :/ But like I say, it's not critical at all.. You could probably be an inch off either way, and notice little difference in tuning. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
In article ,
John Ferrell wrote: I cannot imagine what your problem is with the 2 meter CushCraft Ringo Ranger. I have had the same one in service off and on since the late 70's. Easy to mount, easy to match, physically durable, priced real close to the cost of the aluminum. The J-Pole is popular now days but is not near the performer that the Ringo is. I have both! The Ringo on a tower is not a good idea because it brings up too many repeaters on a given frequency. Bad operating manners! As far as the 12 element CushCraft Yagis are concerned I have a 440 & 2 M models and have found them to work just like the modeling programs indicate. There will be a "lump" on the pattern that is not shown in the model, presumably radiation from the Gamma match. As I understand it, the basic Ringo antenna is a half-wave, end-fed vertical dipole. A gamma loop at the bottom serves as the impedance matching element. The basic J-pole is fundamentally quite similar... it's a half-wave vertical dipole, end-fed. The common versions of J-pole use one or another variant of a shorted quarter-wave stub section as an impedance match. These two antenna types should, in principle, have very similar radiation patterns (they're both half-wave radiators) and can have similar problems with pattern-disturbing "RF on the mast" and "RF on the feedline" (they're often grounded to the mast, and fed from a 50-ohm feedline without a choke). In some installations, the "RF where you don't want it" condition could cause the antenna's pattern to squint in directions where it doesn't do you all that much good, and have a weaker signal directly out towards the horizon where most of the repeaters probably are. In other installations (where the feedline or mast presents a high or highly reactive impedance) you wouldn't notice any problem. The Ringo Ranger is a higher-gain antenna, with two vertically-stacked radiating sections and a phasing stub between them. It looks to me as if the two sections are 5/8 wavelength or a bit more. You'd get several dB more gain towards the horizon with this configuration, than you would get from a J-pole or an original Ringo. The Ringo Ranger has no decoupling from the mast or feedline, and can suffer from the same sort of pattern-squint as the Ringo and J-pole. The Ringo Ranger II adds a decoupling section (a length of feedline and a set of decoupling radials) which is supposed to prevent this problem, and it would probably have the cleanest and sharpest towards-the-horizon pattern of any of these antennas. -- Dave Platt AE6EO Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads! |
Thank You / Thank You / Thank YOU VERY MUCH!
I can make a loop out of some copper tube and I can use a old piece of RG 8 for the stub match and I have enough aluminum tube from another Ringo to make the mast 18' long..... All I need to do now is take down what I have and modify it and put it back up. THANK YOU! Dummy ME! - I could have bought a used antenna analyzer at a hamfest today for $50.00 - MFJ that had no digital display and no UHF and NO POWER SUPPLY and no instructions. I was told that I could have used it with a transceiver, turn the knob until it zero beats the frequency of the receiver and then use it to tune the antenna. I probably messed up! Then again - if it was $50.00 and didn't work and could not be repaired - it would have been $50.00 that could have been applied towards another antenna. This is what happens when you try to help someone and when you try to give something away to a friend.. It always happens that something is not right and that when it does not work as intended - even if several years later - I end up being the bad guy. In fact - the Ringo listens real well - it just doesn't transmit - because the impedance / reactance is wrong. I could have bought a good antenna analyzer last year for $85.00 and did not because a friend of mine wanted it and bought it for $65.00 I'm learning that amateur radio is a lot like stock car racing. The only friends you have is the ones you brought to the track with you! Once the Green flag falls - all agreements are off and it is a free for all. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
On Tuesday, September 4, 2012 7:03:05 PM UTC-4, Channel Jumper wrote:
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? -- Channel Jumper Hey OM. These antennas are pretty simple, The instructions are on the web. Check the instructions against what you have and you should be able to get them to work by putting them together or making repairs. One is as easy as the other. Jimmie |
Ringo Ranger Problems
On 9/9/2012 7:36 PM, Channel Jumper wrote:
I could have bought a good antenna analyzer last year for $85.00 and did not because a friend of mine wanted it and bought it for $65.00 I think they are overrated.. I've never needed or owned one so far.. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
In article , NM5K wrote:
On 9/9/2012 7:36 PM, Channel Jumper wrote: I could have bought a good antenna analyzer last year for $85.00 and did not because a friend of mine wanted it and bought it for $65.00 I think they are overrated.. I've never needed or owned one so far.. I had a plain Two Meter Ringo back in the 70s, before they came out with the "Ranger" versions. It worked well, but gain claimed was probably DBi rather than DBd. I also have three generations of MFJ antenna analyzers. I don't know if they are overrated, but they are very handy. They save a lot of time compared to using a transmitter and SWR bridge to set up an antenna. As I understand it, they work just like the typical "reflectometer" SWR bridge where you set forward power to full scale and read reflected power on an SWR scale. Their VFO has its output held constant over the frequency range, calibrated for the equivalent of the SWR bridge's full scale setting. The early version Channel Jumper mentioned, probably had a frequency scale printed on the face. For critical settings, either a counter or a calibrated receiver would be needed. Later versions have a counter built-in, and the latest also displays antenna data on the LCD display. Fred K4DII |
Quote:
With a digital display it is as simple as putting the antenna together on the ground, sticking it on a pole someplace, using a feed line that is as short as possible - less then 1/4 wavelength is desireable when possible - I know at higher frequencies this is hard to do. Turning on the Analyzer and reading the input. Using a old style analyzer isn't as simple when you do not know the exact frequency you are tuning to... So in the long run - I probably saved myself $40 - $50.00 A stub match question I forgot to ask is - should the end of the stub match at 1' 8 inches long be shorted on the end or open... The web calculator I used said the Stub would be short if it was shorted and would be long if it was not - but that if it was not shorted you run the risk of the stub trying to radiate the power applied... http://www.qsl.net/va3iul/Impedance_...e_Matching.pdf |
Another broadband matching approach may use a tapered line transformer with continuously varying
characteristic impedance along its length (characteristic impedance varies continuously in a smooth fashion). In this case, the design obtains reflection coefficients lower than a specified tolerance at frequencies exceeding a minimum value. · The required length of the taper section should be about 0.5 to 1.5 of wavelength. A different narrow-band approach involves the insertion of a shunt imaginary admittance on the line. Often, the admittance is realized with a section (or stub) of transmission line and the technique is commonly known as stub matching. The end of the stub line is short-circuited or open-circuited, in order to realize an imaginary admittance. A second narrow-band example involves the insertion of series impedance (stub) along the line. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
On 9/10/2012 1:46 PM, Fred McKenzie wrote:
In article , NM5K wrote: On 9/9/2012 7:36 PM, Channel Jumper wrote: I could have bought a good antenna analyzer last year for $85.00 and did not because a friend of mine wanted it and bought it for $65.00 I think they are overrated.. I've never needed or owned one so far.. I had a plain Two Meter Ringo back in the 70s, before they came out with the "Ranger" versions. It worked well, but gain claimed was probably DBi rather than DBd. If they rated a ringo using dbd, it would be zero.. Which doesn't look too good in the ad's.. :| So they use dbi to make for manlier gain figures.. I also have three generations of MFJ antenna analyzers. I don't know if they are overrated, but they are very handy. They save a lot of time compared to using a transmitter and SWR bridge to set up an antenna. Dunno, I'm pretty danged fast using just an SWR meter. But I already know what to expect, how to quickly know if I'm long or short, etc.. All the analyzers do for me is verify what I already know from looking at the SWR meter, which in my case is built into the radio, assuming I'm on the Icom. :/ I like not having to carry extra gadgets.. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
On 9/10/2012 3:06 PM, Channel Jumper wrote:
A stub match question I forgot to ask is - should the end of the stub match at 1' 8 inches long be shorted on the end or open... Open. It's being used purely as a capacitor. |
Being Long or Short is not the problem - if it was simple vertical with a ground plane with no loading coil - like a whip on a automobile - yes - you would be right.
But when dealing with a Ringo - which uses a ring to adjust the capacitive / inductive and also uses a tuning stub match - each part of the antenna works against each other.. Even now, the antenna on the VSWR Bridge shows a 2:1 match! But I figure the Ring is probably 9 inches too shot - if the ring is 7.5 inches in diameter and needs to be 10 and the stub is too short - if it needs to be 18 inches long and is only 6.... The Antenna Analyzer would tell me the Resistive / Reactive components and all I would have to do is match them and it would work on any one frequency. This is the problem with the Ringo - why it is not broad banded. The main use where I live was by people who were installers of LMRS equipment that sold them along with a radio to fire companies and ambulances.... |
Ringo Ranger Problems
"NM5K" wrote in message ... If they rated a ringo using dbd, it would be zero.. Which doesn't look too good in the ad's.. :| So they use dbi to make for manlier gain figures.. I think CC just pulled numbers out of the air. Especially in the eairly days. Just looking at an old ad from 1974. They rate the 2 meter Ringo at 3.75 db gain. No refferance as to what. Also the 11 element was rated at 13.2 db of gain. The only antenna that does make sense is the 4 bay dipole with up to 9 db of gain. Atleast if you put all the dipoles on one side, it could have almost 9 db of gain over a dipole. I did compair two differant 220 mhz 11 element beams to an 8 element quagi I built from plans in the ARRL Handbook. The quagi was much beter than either of the 11 element CC antennas. The antennas were put on a 30 foot push up pole so it was easy to change and compair them. Most of the testing was to a repeater about 40 miles away, but the results were the same on other signals. Common joke was the CC stuff was compaired to the Heathkit Cantenna in terms of db gain. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
On 9/10/2012 9:01 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
wrote in message ... If they rated a ringo using dbd, it would be zero.. Which doesn't look too good in the ad's.. :| So they use dbi to make for manlier gain figures.. I think CC just pulled numbers out of the air. Especially in the eairly days. Just looking at an old ad from 1974. They rate the 2 meter Ringo at 3.75 db gain. No refferance as to what. Also the 11 element was rated at 13.2 db of gain. Which was quite a bit shorter than the CC 214WB. The 214WB, which was better when you took off the marketing based "trigonal" reflector, still only made 11.91 dBd on a 14' 11" boom when optimized (based on your preferences). BTW the maximum reasonably obtainable gain on a yagi with a boom greater than 1 wavelngth is predictable with the following equation - G = 10 log (5.4075 B + 4.25) for B GT 1 Where G is gain in dBd and B is boomlength in wavelengths. I worked this out in the early 90's from a database of over 100 of the best practical, buildable VHF/UHF yagi designs. Thanks especially to K1FO for all of his design work. His 432 yagis had the greatest effect on the numbers. W1JR thinks it's accurate, so who am I to argue? I designed an extended version of the 214 that lets you re-use the useless extra reflectors as directors. This had a 17' 7" boom and would make 12.43 dBd at 144.2 with a decent feedpoint impedance of 21 ohms and F/B of 24 dB. This was used successfully at a friend's place for a 2 by 2 EME array. The antenna was tested at Central States and met the computer predicted gain exactly. If you want crazy I have a 432 EME antenna that does 18.4 dBd (according to the model) which tested at 18.1 on the range. They said the range was too short to test the antenna. It was still the highest gain for a homebrew 432 ever tested at Central States. Anyone that wants any 6m to 70cm designs can drop me an email. I've got lots. tom K0TAR |
Ringo Ranger Problems
"tom" wrote in message . net... I worked this out in the early 90's from a database of over 100 of the best practical, buildable VHF/UHF yagi designs. Thanks especially to K1FO for all of his design work. His 432 yagis had the greatest effect on the numbers. W1JR thinks it's accurate, so who am I to argue? I like the K1FO designs. I had a 432 antenna by Rutland Arays that seemed to be a copy of the K1FO design. Several years ago I put up some new antennas and wanted to go withthe Rutland, but he had passed away and went with the M-Square antennas for 2 meters and 432 mhz. From what I read, the Trigonal reflector was something that looked good for sells, but did little or nothing for that antenna. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
On 9/10/2012 7:40 PM, Channel Jumper wrote:
Being Long or Short is not the problem - if it was simple vertical with a ground plane with no loading coil - like a whip on a automobile - yes - you would be right. No problem even with loading coils. Or when using the various matching systems. They all act fairly predictably. But when dealing with a Ringo - which uses a ring to adjust the capacitive / inductive and also uses a tuning stub match - each part of the antenna works against each other.. Even now, the antenna on the VSWR Bridge shows a 2:1 match! Sure, it needs more inductance. But I figure the Ring is probably 9 inches too shot - if the ring is 7.5 inches in diameter and needs to be 10 and the stub is too short - if it needs to be 18 inches long and is only 6.... For a 10m ringo 18 inches would be about right with it tapped about halfway. I think one I made used about a 20 inch dia turn. But I didn't need all of it. The Antenna Analyzer would tell me the Resistive / Reactive components and all I would have to do is match them and it would work on any one frequency. Sure.. But I can do it by sense of smell.. Plenty of practice.. :/ This is the problem with the Ringo - why it is not broad banded. The main use where I live was by people who were installers of LMRS equipment that sold them along with a radio to fire companies and ambulances.... It should have about the same bandwidth as most any other half wave. I've never noticed them to really show any less bandwidth than other designs. But then again, I'm not sure what you mean by not broad banded. That could vary depending on expectations. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
On 9/10/2012 10:33 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
From what I read, the Trigonal reflector was something that looked good for sells, but did little or nothing for that antenna. Yep, most have come to the conclusion they were kind of a waste of metal.. I've got an old 2m "boomer" that has that reflector.. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
In article ,
Channel Jumper wrote: But I figure the Ring is probably 9 inches too shot - if the ring is 7.5 inches in diameter and needs to be 10 and the stub is too short - if it needs to be 18 inches long and is only 6.... Channel Jumper- You can get parts measurements for the various Ringo antennas at the CushCraft website (Now part of MFJ!). For the Ten Meter version, http://www.cushcraftamateur.com/Product.php?productid=AR-10. A user manual is available by clicking on "AR-10 Downloads". I do not see a Stub length given for the AR-10, but the AR-6 manual has a chart. The AR-10 manual's specification says that gain is 3 dB "Ref. Quarterwave"! Fred K4DII |
Ringo Ranger Problems
On 9/12/2012 7:12 PM, Fred McKenzie wrote:
In article , Channel Jumper wrote: But I figure the Ring is probably 9 inches too shot - if the ring is 7.5 inches in diameter and needs to be 10 and the stub is too short - if it needs to be 18 inches long and is only 6.... Channel Jumper- You can get parts measurements for the various Ringo antennas at the CushCraft website (Now part of MFJ!). For the Ten Meter version, http://www.cushcraftamateur.com/Product.php?productid=AR-10. A user manual is available by clicking on "AR-10 Downloads". I do not see a Stub length given for the AR-10, but the AR-6 manual has a chart. It's in the manual.. Was about 16.5 inches long with the RG-8 they use. They don't give the dia for the single turn coil, but I've built a few of those, and used 18-20 inches or so dia. Not real critical being it will be tapped appx mid way for a coil that diameter. 7.5 inches dia is too small for 10m. Even 10 inches would likely be too small unless maybe you tapped it near the end, using almost the whole coil. I don't think I'd make it any less that 15-16 inches dia. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
In article , NM5K wrote:
On 9/12/2012 7:12 PM, Fred McKenzie wrote: In article , Channel Jumper wrote: But I figure the Ring is probably 9 inches too shot - if the ring is 7.5 inches in diameter and needs to be 10 and the stub is too short - if it needs to be 18 inches long and is only 6.... Channel Jumper- You can get parts measurements for the various Ringo antennas at the CushCraft website (Now part of MFJ!). For the Ten Meter version, http://www.cushcraftamateur.com/Product.php?productid=AR-10. A user manual is available by clicking on "AR-10 Downloads". I do not see a Stub length given for the AR-10, but the AR-6 manual has a chart. It's in the manual.. Was about 16.5 inches long with the RG-8 they use. They don't give the dia for the single turn coil, but I've built a few of those, and used 18-20 inches or so dia. Not real critical being it will be tapped appx mid way for a coil that diameter. 7.5 inches dia is too small for 10m. Even 10 inches would likely be too small unless maybe you tapped it near the end, using almost the whole coil. I don't think I'd make it any less that 15-16 inches dia. I overlooked the stub in the manual I downloaded. Now I see it in the Ring Assembly Parts, Key FF. It is 16 5/8". Ring diameter is listed as 13" in a chart at the web link above. I do not see size listed in the manual, where the ring is shown as two similar pieces bolted together. Fred K4DII |
Ringo Ranger Problems
On 9/13/2012 12:01 AM, Fred McKenzie wrote:
It's in the manual.. Was about 16.5 inches long with the RG-8 they use. They don't give the dia for the single turn coil, but I've built a few of those, and used 18-20 inches or so dia. Not real critical being it will be tapped appx mid way for a coil that diameter. 7.5 inches dia is too small for 10m. Even 10 inches would likely be too small unless maybe you tapped it near the end, using almost the whole coil. I don't think I'd make it any less that 15-16 inches dia. I overlooked the stub in the manual I downloaded. Now I see it in the Ring Assembly Parts, Key FF. It is 16 5/8". Ring diameter is listed as 13" in a chart at the web link above. I do not see size listed in the manual, where the ring is shown as two similar pieces bolted together. Fred K4DII Yep, I see it now.. I was thinking it was slightly larger than that, but maybe the original AR-10 I had was only 13 inches across. They show the 6m version using the same part.. From the diagram, it looks like about 2/3 of the turn is used on 10m. Also, if I remember right, the 6m version used no coax cap for tuning. I was looking at the 6m ringo PDF the other day. |
Ringo Ranger Problems
"Channel Jumper" ha scritto nel messaggio ... Any idea's? Ringo antenna - like *all* half wave antennas - don't want the mounting mast lenght of 1/4 wl and odd multiples. So be careful. Many people said ringo antenna is bad, no resonance, etc... because of this. Chris -.-. --.- |
Ok, so what I did was take the antenna apart, add another couple of feet and made it 16' long.
I shorted out the stub match at 19 inches long. SWR was about 5:1 So I tried lengthening it to 18' - which did not improve the SWR much. So I put it back at 16' and I cut the stub match off at the solder point and I stuck it up 30' in the air and the SWR was 1.1 : 1 at channel 23 and was 1.25 : 1 on channel 1 and was 1 : 1 on channel 19.... Since the person I put it up for only has a 23 channel radio, and since he only uses channel 19 - that was all he cared about... Technicially it says it is good for about 1.5 : 1 on any frequency - hence getting it closer then that was a real accomplishment, and although I know a little about antenna's - this one had me stumpped..... Thanks everyone..... |
Ringo Ranger Problems
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 |
Ringo Ranger Problems
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 |
Ringo Ranger Problems
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