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?

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

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.

"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.

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...

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.

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

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.

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
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