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Dual band antenna ???
Hi all
Now I need a recommendation for a 2m 70cm base antenna. This will go right at the top of a 50ft tower. My ringo 2m modification antenna didn't pan out too well. I could get low SWR on some freq but I want a wider range of work. If that is possible. I also use it for 156 megs (Marine band). I am looking at the utubes of dual band antennas for home, I like the UVS-300. Can anyone make a recommendation for the purchase of a dual band antenna? I would also like to use it as a SWL antenna as I listen a lot on all bands. This antenna will be verticle and right at the top of the tower. I am hoping to spend about 200 dollars. Thanks for any comments, |
Quote:
Ringo's are nothing more then a over glorified dummy load.. Second choice would be a Diamond V2000 if you also wanted to include 6 meters..... On two meters FM - I have talked up to 1500 miles when the bands were open with the Diamond V2000 and frequently talk 50 / 75 miles in the mountains of western Pennsylvania - although my elevation helps a little. I am at 1400' amsl - 60 miles west of State College and 65 miles east of Pittsburgh and I can talk and listen - north, south, east and west about 50 miles full quieting. |
Dual band antenna ???
On Wed, 6 Feb 2013 22:08:02 +0000, Channel Jumper
wrote: 'Tom[_8_ Wrote: ;801430']Hi all Now I need a recommendation for a 2m 70cm base antenna. This will go right at the top of a 50ft tower. My ringo 2m modification antenna didn't pan out too well. I could get low SWR on some freq but I want a wider range of work. If that is possible. I also use it for 156 megs (Marine band). I am looking at the utubes of dual band antennas for home, I like the UVS-300. Can anyone make a recommendation for the purchase of a dual band antenna? I would also like to use it as a SWL antenna as I listen a lot on all bands. This antenna will be verticle and right at the top of the tower. I am hoping to spend about 200 dollars. Thanks for any comments, The antenna of choice is the Diamond X 510 fed with Belden 9913 or LMR 400 Ringo's are nothing more then a over glorified dummy load.. Second choice would be a Diamond V2000 if you also wanted to include 6 meters..... On two meters FM - I have talked up to 1500 miles when the bands were open with the Diamond V2000 and frequently talk 50 / 75 miles in the mountains of western Pennsylvania - although my elevation helps a little. I am at 1400' amsl - 60 miles west of State College and 65 miles east of Pittsburgh and I can talk and listen - north, south, east and west about 50 miles full quieting. Do not take the Diamond X510, take a shorter one. The long antenna bends and swayes in the wind causing unnecessary fading. The bending results in early failure. You cannot SWL with a real duoband antenna, because it is frequency selective and is dead on the SW bands. w. |
Ya - I didn't catch that one.
Longer wavelengths requires a larger antenna, hence you aren't going to use a 2 meter antenna to listen to 80 or 160 meters - at least you probably aren't going to work much DX - but the bottom line is - you need more then one antenna to do everything... MIght I suggest the Barker and Williamson BWD 90 folded dipole for the HF bands. Problem is - it costs more then 200 dollars. The Diamond X510 should not give you much problems with bending - opposed to what Wabnig sez... Technicially, you should never put a vertical antenna at the very top of any tower. You should side mount it - which would eliminate any bending or flexing. Putting it at the top of the tower - just turns it into a good lightning rod. |
Dual band antenna ???
Thanks for the tips
Are any better than the others in cross frequency rejection? I want a high gain antenna but nothing that would pull in too many high power operators locally. Sometimes there are pagers or text message providers who bleed onto two meters, especially when a local ham transmits, seems to come in strong. Are there any ways to reduce or eliminate the cross frequency intermodulation? I like the idea of the 17 foot, no problem with height, height means gain, gain sometimes means intermodulation. The diamond X-510 has very good reviews, Any ideas how to eliminate cross channel intermodulation with good antenna? Or right antenna? Thanks "Channel Jumper" wrote in message ... 'Helmut Wabnig[_2_ Wrote: ;801459']On Wed, 6 Feb 2013 22:08:02 +0000, Channel Jumper wrote: - 'Tom[_8_ Wrote: - ;801430']Hi all Now I need a recommendation for a 2m 70cm base antenna. This will go right at the top of a 50ft tower. My ringo 2m modification antenna didn't pan out too well. I could get low SWR on some freq but I want a wider range of work. If that is possible. I also use it for 156 megs (Marine band). I am looking at the utubes of dual band antennas for home, I like the UVS-300. Can anyone make a recommendation for the purchase of a dual band antenna? I would also like to use it as a SWL antenna as I listen a lot on all bands. This antenna will be verticle and right at the top of the tower. I am hoping to spend about 200 dollars. Thanks for any comments,- The antenna of choice is the Diamond X 510 fed with Belden 9913 or LMR 400 Ringo's are nothing more then a over glorified dummy load.. Second choice would be a Diamond V2000 if you also wanted to include 6 meters..... On two meters FM - I have talked up to 1500 miles when the bands were open with the Diamond V2000 and frequently talk 50 / 75 miles in the mountains of western Pennsylvania - although my elevation helps a little. I am at 1400' amsl - 60 miles west of State College and 65 miles east of Pittsburgh and I can talk and listen - north, south, east and west about 50 miles full quieting.- Do not take the Diamond X510, take a shorter one. The long antenna bends and swayes in the wind causing unnecessary fading. The bending results in early failure. You cannot SWL with a real duoband antenna, because it is frequency selective and is dead on the SW bands. w. Ya - I didn't catch that one. Longer wavelengths requires a larger antenna, hence you aren't going to use a 2 meter antenna to listen to 80 or 160 meters - at least you probably aren't going to work much DX - but the bottom line is - you need more then one antenna to do everything... MIght I suggest the Barker and Williamson BWD 90 folded dipole for the HF bands. Problem is - it costs more then 200 dollars. The Diamond X510 should not give you much problems with bending - opposed to what Wabnig sez... Technicially, you should never put a vertical antenna at the very top of any tower. You should side mount it - which would eliminate any bending or flexing. Putting it at the top of the tower - just turns it into a good lightning rod. -- Channel Jumper |
Not to get too technicial, but the title of the post was Dual Band Antenna ???
Not one antenna that does it all. The only antenna that does more then one or three bands would be the discone antenna... The Diamond Discone will operate somewhere between 10 meters and 900 MHz. Any other antenna would require the use of traps or solenoids to make the antenna resonant for that band. One other antenna - if you had the money and the real estate would be the High Power - Off Center Fed Dipole - which operates practically everywhere between 440 MHz and 160 meters - with the exception of 15 and 30 meters. http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/hypower/ |
Dual band antenna ???
On Fri, 8 Feb 2013 09:08:47 -0500, "Tom" wrote:
Are any better than the others in cross frequency rejection? I want a high gain antenna but nothing that would pull in too many high power operators locally. Sometimes there are pagers or text message providers who bleed onto two meters, especially when a local ham transmits, seems to come in strong. Are there any ways to reduce or eliminate the cross frequency intermodulation? I like the idea of the 17 foot, no problem with height, height means gain, gain sometimes means intermodulation. The diamond X-510 has very good reviews, Any ideas how to eliminate cross channel intermodulation with good antenna? Or right antenna? You're antenna isn't going to do much for removing excessively strong signals, such as paging. The single best improvement you can do is to lose your scanner, and get a better receiver with a better 3rd order intermod (IMD3) specification. By the nature of the beast, scanners are highly susceptible to intermod mixes in their front ends. There are cavity and crystal notch filters, that will reduce the signal levels around the paging transmitter frequency, without affecting the operating frequency (much). Search for crystal VHF notch filter or cavity VHF notch filter. http://www.parelectronics.com/amateur.php http://www.vk5zd.com/PagerFilter/Filter.aspx Careful what you buy as some notch filers are receive only and will blow up if you transmit through it. You can also build a tolerable notch filter with a T-connector and a 1/4 wave coax stub: http://dl4xav.sysve.de/coax.filter/coax-filter.html There are also ham radio bandpass filters, such as: http://www.dci.ca/?Section=Products&SubSection=Amateur-FAQ A BPF has the advantage of removing multiple sources of IMD, from a wide variety of off frequency sources, while the various notch filters only remove one frequency. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
Dual band antenna ???
In article ,
Jeff Liebermann wrote: Any ideas how to eliminate cross channel intermodulation with good antenna? Or right antenna? You're antenna isn't going to do much for removing excessively strong signals, such as paging. The single best improvement you can do is to lose your scanner, and get a better receiver with a better 3rd order intermod (IMD3) specification. By the nature of the beast, scanners are highly susceptible to intermod mixes in their front ends. This is also a problem for many (most?) modern ham HTs, which have broad-as-a-barn front ends. Their "DC to daylight" reception is both a feature-advantage and a robustness-disadvantage. Older single-band radios often have better front end filters. There are cavity and crystal notch filters, that will reduce the signal levels around the paging transmitter frequency, without affecting the operating frequency (much). Search for crystal VHF notch filter or cavity VHF notch filter. http://www.parelectronics.com/amateur.php I can offer a thumbs-up for the PAR Electronics VHFTN152-158. I had terrible pager intermod problems with my Yaesu VX-5, whenever I had it hooked to a "real" antenna (roof, bicycle-mobile flag J-pole, etc.) rather than a rubber duck. The pager-notch filter eliminated the problem, and as far as I can tell it hasn't had a significant effect on ham-band receive sensitivity or transmit power on either 2 meters or 440. I assume I'm losing some signal and power due to insertion loss but it hasn't been noticeable. -- 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! |
Dual band antenna ???
On 2/8/2013 8:24 AM, Channel Jumper wrote:
One other antenna - if you had the money and the real estate would be the High Power - Off Center Fed Dipole - which operates practically everywhere between 440 MHz and 160 meters - with the exception of 15 and 30 meters. http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/hypower/ If you believe that an antenna will operate effectively from 160m to 70cm you are even more ignorant than I previously thought. And OCFD are not good even at HF if you really understand how they work and the problems they have because of that. tom K0TAR |
Dual band antenna ???
On Fri, 08 Feb 2013 20:26:03 -0600, tom wrote:
If you believe that an antenna will operate effectively from 160m to 70cm you are even more ignorant than I previously thought. Yep. To paraphrase Roy Lewallen (W7EL): Small size, broadband, gain.... pick any two. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
Dual band antenna ???
"tom" wrote in message ... And OCFD are not good even at HF if you really understand how they work and the problems they have because of that. tom K0TAR Tom have you ever compaired the OCF to other antennas at your house ? I have. I have up an 80 meter dipole and OCF at right angles to each other at about 50 to 60 feet on each end. There is not much differance in the two on 80 except in the favored directions. Also is a 3 element tribander at 60 feet. On 20 and 10 meters there is not really that much differance on the stateside stations either when the stations are in the direction the OCF favors. There is a big differance in the directions that the OCF does not favor as it should be. If I could only put up a dipole nonrotating antenna, that would still be the results. Now granted the OCF will not work all that well above 10 meters, and there are some low bands such as 15 meters it will not work well as the swr is very high. The OCF I am using is a home made Carolina Windom type for 80 meters and above. de KU4PT |
Dual band antenna ???
On Fri, 8 Feb 2013 09:08:47 -0500, "Tom" wrote:
Thanks for the tips snip The diamond X-510 has very good reviews, I cut mine to small pieces and dumped into the garbage bin. That much for the good reviews. But you don't want to listen and learn. w. |
Quote:
If you talk to the owner of that web site, he will tell you that the designer of the particular model of off center fed dipole that I am talking about is K3CC. Again, if you call him on the phone, he will explain to you that K3CC holds 27 US patents and is a lot more intelligent then you will ever be. A off center fed dipole is not a balanced antenna, but exhibits some properities not found in a regular old dipole. Reguardless of it's length - you can always find someplace where it is resonant. Its SWR is flat as a board on most bands and is below 2:1 most everywhere else with the exception of 15 and 30 meters........ The neatest thing I ever heard was from a old Motorola Technician who told me two important things. First was that God gave us two ears and only one mouth. That means we should listen twice as much as we should speak. Second was that when a manufacturer makes a radio, they make the most important knob the largest knob - hence the tuning knob is the largest knob on the radio. If you don't like what you hear - you turn the knob. I was under the impression that this person was a HAM and wanted to talk as well as listen. Then we got into a discussion about scanners. Now I am confused. With any type of communications - if a pager is suspect and it interferes with amateur radio, you can either A - turn the operator of the pager into the FCC for interfering with amateur radio communications - good luck, or you can add filtering. Even some two meter repeaters operates illegally, because their signals splatter all over other peoples repeaters.. We need to remember that repeaters are not built and owned by the government or industry, but by regular old ham radio operators like you and me. As far as analog scanners goes, you sure can't beat a Uniden 890XLT... Even unmodded, it should hold 200 channels, and has a very sensitive receive. Moving up to a dedicated transceiver - that can be used as a all band scanner, you could purchase a Yaesu 8900 which does everything from 10 meters to 800 MHz.... At about $450 new, and with a slight modification - resistor removal, will transmit 28 - 29 Mhz, 50 - 54 MHz, 140 - 148 Mhz, 430 - 460 Mhz. and will listen everywhere else. If you don't have a ham license, then just put the microphone away and listen. |
It's pretty hard to listen when you are talking, and it is pretty hard to compare one antenna to another when you do not have that particular model of antenna there in front of you and in operation at the same time.
And it is not fair to compare one antenna to another when they are not aimed in the same direction. Antenna comparisons are made at the same time, within one hour of each other and in the same location and height.... http://www.k3cc.net/ |
Dual band antenna ???
Channel Jumper wrote:
tom;801521 Wrote: On 2/8/2013 8:24 AM, Channel Jumper wrote: - One other antenna - if you had the money and the real estate would be the High Power - Off Center Fed Dipole - which operates practically everywhere between 440 MHz and 160 meters - with the exception of 15 and 30 meters. http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/hypower/- If you believe that an antenna will operate effectively from 160m to 70cm you are even more ignorant than I previously thought. And OCFD are not good even at HF if you really understand how they work and the problems they have because of that. tom K0TAR I am going to explain it, but only once. If you talk to the owner of that web site, he will tell you that the designer of the particular model of off center fed dipole that I am talking about is K3CC. Again, if you call him on the phone, he will explain to you that K3CC holds 27 US patents and is a lot more intelligent then you will ever be. I hope he is better at designing antennas than at building websites... Sheesh, what a load of crap. It is still waiting after 5 minutes, and when I click the "no popups" version I end up at some Google login. |
Dual band antenna ???
"Rob" wrote in message ... I hope he is better at designing antennas than at building websites... Sheesh, what a load of crap. It is still waiting after 5 minutes, and when I click the "no popups" version I end up at some Google login. I thought it was just me, but looks like you are having the same problem I have with that site. I just gave up on trying to get anywhere with it. I use an OCF lots of times for the low bands, but just do not see it being very good on 2 meters if designed to start at 160 or 80 meters. Mine does not appear to be that good even at 6 meters. It might be IF I find a station in the right direction. My triband for 20,15,10 makes a beter antenna for 6 than the OCF. I do have 5 elements on 6 with an 18 foot boom to compair it with. |
Dual band antenna ???
In article ,
Channel Jumper wrote: Ringo's are nothing more then a over glorified dummy load.. I am sure Dr Reynolds of the University of Washington School of Electrical Engineering, who designed that antenna for AEA, would take considerable disagreement, with the above. This design was Extensively Tested on the UofW's Antenna Range, up on Pigeon Hill, West Seattle, Washington, which was donated to the UoW, after the Army was finished with the old Army Communications System site, post WWII. Channel Jumper sure is a Morooon (Bugs Bunny Definition) and has no relevant Historical Knowledge..... Me One who actually KNOEWS the relevant FACTS.... |
Dual band antenna ???
"Me" wrote in message ... In article , Channel Jumper wrote: Ringo's are nothing more then a over glorified dummy load.. I am sure Dr Reynolds of the University of Washington School of Electrical Engineering, who designed that antenna for AEA, would take considerable disagreement, with the above. This design was Extensively Tested on the UofW's Antenna Range, up on Pigeon Hill, West Seattle, Washington, which was donated to the UoW, after the Army was finished with the old Army Communications System site, post WWII. Channel Jumper sure is a Morooon (Bugs Bunny Definition) and has no relevant Historical Knowledge..... Me One who actually KNOEWS the relevant FACTS.... Are you sure AEA had an antenna called Ringo ? Cushcraft is the only major company I knew of that produced an antenna called Ringo. AEA did have several other antennas, the Isopole being one for 2 meters and some other frequencies. The origional Ringo for 2 meters was not a very good antenna for most. It worked , but tended to shoot much of the signal off at high angles. Fine if in a low area, not so good for the higher areas. CC also produced some 11 element beams that were a very poor antenna for the size. I compaired a couple of them with a home built quagi out of the ARRL handbook and the 8 element quagi was much beter than the 11 element CC. de KU4PT |
Dual band antenna ???
On Sat, 09 Feb 2013 10:53:00 -0900, Me wrote:
In article , Channel Jumper wrote: Ringo's are nothing more then a over glorified dummy load.. I am sure Dr Reynolds of the University of Washington School of Electrical Engineering, who designed that antenna for AEA, would take considerable disagreement, with the above. This design was Extensively Tested on the UofW's Antenna Range, up on Pigeon Hill, West Seattle, Washington, which was donated to the UoW, after the Army was finished with the old Army Communications System site, post WWII. Not AEA, but for Cushcraft. Obituary: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920205&slug=1474034 I don't believe Dr Reynolds designed the Ringo Ranger for Cushcraft (Now MFJ). The MFJ catalog page claims the Ringo Ranger II was designed by Lester A. Cushman, W1BX(sk) http://www.cushcraftamateur.com/Product.php?productid=AR-2 Dr Reynolds did write an article "The 5/8-Wavelength Antenna Mystique" for the ARRL Antenna Compendium, Volume 1 Pg 101-106, (that seems to have disappeared from my shelf), which may have created some confusion. My take on the Ringo Ranger is that it's a tolerable design, but not the way it's being built. I've seen far too many cracked SO-239 like connectors, corroded adjustment screws and elements, crumbling insulators, crushed mounting tubes, etc. It's major advantage is that without a molded base transformer, this 5/8 wave or (0.64 wave) antenna can be cheaply built, and that tunes a tolerable wide frequency range. Were it built mechanically better, I'm sure it would have had a better reputation. That lack of a commercial equivalent also offers a clue as to its quality. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
Dual band antenna ???
On 2/8/2013 9:50 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
"tom" wrote in message ... And OCFD are not good even at HF if you really understand how they work and the problems they have because of that. tom K0TAR Tom have you ever compaired the OCF to other antennas at your house ? I have. I have up an 80 meter dipole and OCF at right angles to each other at about 50 to 60 feet on each end. There is not much differance in the two on 80 except in the favored directions. Well, since a 3 element tribander would have less than an S unit over a dipole or an OCF I would expect you're correct in stating you can see almost no difference. They still have problems. tom K0TAR |
Dual band antenna ???
"tom" wrote in message ... Well, since a 3 element tribander would have less than an S unit over a dipole or an OCF I would expect you're correct in stating you can see almost no difference. They still have problems. tom K0TAR Again I ask, have you ever used an OCF ? Also what problems do they have that other antennas do not have as long as they are used on the bands they are designed for ? |
Dual band antenna ???
On 2/9/2013 8:51 AM, Channel Jumper wrote:
I am going to explain it, but only once. If you talk to the owner of that web site, he will tell you that the designer of the particular model of off center fed dipole that I am talking about is K3CC. Again, if you call him on the phone, he will explain to you that K3CC holds 27 US patents and is a lot more intelligent then you will ever be. I wasn't talking about him, I was talking about you. I'll say it again, if you think that antenna works well from 160 or 80m to 70cm, which is 420 to 450 MHz if you haven't figured that out, you are more ignorant than I thought. And patents aren't always about smart. Nowadays almost never. They don't even have to be about reality. They are about lawyers, paperwork, patience, money and lawyers. tom K0TAR |
Dual band antenna ???
On 2/9/2013 5:46 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
"tom" wrote in message ... Well, since a 3 element tribander would have less than an S unit over a dipole or an OCF I would expect you're correct in stating you can see almost no difference. They still have problems. tom K0TAR Again I ask, have you ever used an OCF ? Also what problems do they have that other antennas do not have as long as they are used on the bands they are designed for ? Sure. Don't like them. They have problems that center feds don't. tom K0TAR |
Dual band antenna ???
On 2/9/2013 5:46 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
"tom" wrote in message ... Well, since a 3 element tribander would have less than an S unit over a dipole or an OCF I would expect you're correct in stating you can see almost no difference. They still have problems. tom K0TAR Again I ask, have you ever used an OCF ? Also what problems do they have that other antennas do not have as long as they are used on the bands they are designed for ? Feedline radiation problems and odd impedances. They seldom live up to the claims for band coverage. If you have to use a tuner anyway, why add the unbalanced problems into the mix? Just use a balanced antenna. tom K0TAR |
Dual band antenna ???
On 2/9/2013 8:51 AM, Channel Jumper wrote:
tom;801521 Wrote: On 2/8/2013 8:24 AM, Channel Jumper wrote: - One other antenna - if you had the money and the real estate would be the High Power - Off Center Fed Dipole - which operates practically everywhere between 440 MHz and 160 meters - with the exception of 15 and 30 meters. http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/hypower/- If you believe that an antenna will operate effectively from 160m to 70cm you are even more ignorant than I previously thought. And OCFD are not good even at HF if you really understand how they work and the problems they have because of that. tom K0TAR I am going to explain it, but only once. One other problem you may have missed. Any choking system you have that works at 160m won't work at about 20m and up. So you you need at least 2 different chokes for 20m+. And probably a third to reach 70cm. Concerning pattern, anything 10 meters and up becomes a bit crazy because the wires are quite directional with gain in several different directions. And 70cm would be useless compared to a bad yagi with ok coax. tom K0TAR |
Dual band antenna ???
On Saturday, February 9, 2013 3:37:26 PM UTC-6, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
Dr Reynolds did write an article "The 5/8-Wavelength Antenna Mystique" for the ARRL Antenna Compendium, Volume 1 Pg 101-106, (that seems to have disappeared from my shelf), which may have created some confusion. My take on the Ringo Ranger is that it's a tolerable design, but not the way it's being built. I think they were OK for a simple and fairly cheap design, but the Ringo Ranger 2 was a much better antenna than the regular Ringo Ranger without the lower decoupling section. I picked up a Ringo Ranger free years ago, and made my own radial set which copied the commercial Ringo Ranger 2 design. I tested it without the section, and with, and there was a huge difference in the pattern. I'm talking in the multi S units range with the local low angle signals I was testing with. So there was obviously a large amount of skewing without the decoupling section. With it, it was not a bad antenna at all, and fairly low impact visually. Reynolds was involved with AEA, and was behind the design of the Isopoles, and other marine type whips they sold. The Isopole was slightly superior to the Ringo Ranger 2, mainly because it had superior decoupling with it's cones, vs the RR2 using a length of feedline, and a set of radials. But to me, the Isopole was kind of ugly.. Like having a ballistic missile on the house.. lol.. But it was the best of the dual 5/8 wave verticals when it came to performance. |
[quote=tom;801584]On 2/9/2013 8:51 AM, Channel Jumper wrote:[color=blue][i]
tom;801521 Wrote: On 2/8/2013 8:24 AM, Channel Jumper wrote: - One other antenna - if you had the money and the real estate would be the High Power - Off Center Fed Dipole - which operates practically everywhere between 440 MHz and 160 meters - with the exception of 15 and 30 meters. http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/hypower/- If you believe that an antenna will operate effectively from 160m to 70cm you are even more ignorant than I previously thought. And OCFD are not good even at HF if you really understand how they work and the problems they have because of that. tom K0TAR Blaah blaah blaah |
Dual band antenna ???
wrote in message ... My take on the Ringo Ranger is that it's a tolerable design, but not the way it's being built. I think they were OK for a simple and fairly cheap design, but the Ringo Ranger 2 was a much better antenna than the regular Ringo Ranger without the lower decoupling section. I picked up a Ringo Ranger free years ago, and made my own radial set which copied the commercial Ringo Ranger 2 design. I tested it without the section, and with, and there was a huge difference in the pattern. I'm talking in the multi S units range with the local low angle signals I was testing with. So there was obviously a large amount of skewing without the decoupling section. With it, it was not a bad antenna at all, and fairly low impact visually. When the lower radials were added the Ringo was suspose to work much beter. By that time, the Ringo had fallen out of favor around here so I do not know how well they worked. Main thing is that adding the radials defeated the purpose of the antenna, which was to eliminate the radials. |
Dual band antenna ???
On Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:02:51 -0800 (PST), wrote:
On Saturday, February 9, 2013 3:37:26 PM UTC-6, Jeff Liebermann wrote: Dr Reynolds did write an article "The 5/8-Wavelength Antenna Mystique" for the ARRL Antenna Compendium, Volume 1 Pg 101-106, (that seems to have disappeared from my shelf), which may have created some confusion. My take on the Ringo Ranger is that it's a tolerable design, but not the way it's being built. I think they were OK for a simple and fairly cheap design, but the Ringo Ranger 2 was a much better antenna than the regular Ringo Ranger without the lower decoupling section. I picked up a Ringo Ranger free years ago, and made my own radial set which copied the commercial Ringo Ranger 2 design. I tested it without the section, and with, and there was a huge difference in the pattern. I'm talking in the multi S units range with the local low angle signals I was testing with. So there was obviously a large amount of skewing without the decoupling section. With it, it was not a bad antenna at all, and fairly low impact visually. Did you perhaps mount the antenna over a metal roof or on a tower side arm? Without the decoupling section, the ground under the antenna will cause pattern uptilt. Reynolds was involved with AEA, and was behind the design of the Isopoles, and other marine type whips they sold. The Isopole was slightly superior to the Ringo Ranger 2, mainly because it had superior decoupling with it's cones, vs the RR2 using a length of feedline, and a set of radials. But to me, the Isopole was kind of ugly.. Like having a ballistic missile on the house.. lol.. But it was the best of the dual 5/8 wave verticals when it came to performance. Thanks. That explains a few things. Incidentally, my rule "The uglier the antenna, the better it works" was originally based on the isopole antenna. I had the displeasure of going through a variety of antennas on our radio club VHF repeater (K6BJ) about 10 years ago. We started with a Cushcraft something (forgot the model number). After pouring water out of the insides, I decided to replace it. The first attempt was a Cushcraft AR2 Ring Ranger that was previously used as a backup antenna. It exhibited all the mechanical problems I previously itemized. The corrosion also generated intermod. After several other failed antenna tests, I settled on an a Diamond F22a, which has been in service since about 1997 without any problems. A second F22a was installed at our other repeater (KI6EH) with similar good results. The F22a is stainless and fiberglass, as opposed to the Ringo aluminum and galvanized steel. For UHF, we installed a Diamond X-50. http://www.LearnByDestroying.com/k6bj/K6BJ%20Repeater/slides/Antennas.html I recently inherited a very used VHF isopole antenna, which I haven't tried yet. It's going to need extensive cleaning before installation. I agree that the cones do look rather strange. There are commercial antennas, with a similar design that use cylindrical tubing as decoupling sleeves, which are functionally identical and far less strange looking. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
Dual band antenna ???
On 2/10/2013 7:34 AM, Channel Jumper wrote:
snip loads of braggadocio unrelated to what I said. You still haven't addressed your claim about 70cm. tom K0TAR |
Quote:
http://www.wadsworthsales.com/Pages/celwave.aspx |
Dual band antenna ???
On Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:15:33 +0000, Channel Jumper
wrote: If you are building a repeater - you use a Station Master - commercial grade antenna, not a cheap vertical like the Diamond X 50. http://www.wadsworthsales.com/Pages/celwave.aspx Thanks for the sage advice. There were problems with the installation which prevented the use of heavy antennas with a high wind load. We were offered a free 20 year old super station monster antenna but turned it down due to the size (22ft). The Diamond F22a on the VHF repeater has been quite adequate. While I'm sure the station monster antenna would work well for those in the distance, we are more interested in local communications. VHF and UHF coverage: http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/coverage/k6bj/146mhz/k6bj-146-3d.jpg http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/coverage/k6bj/440mhz/k6bj-440-3d.jpg If you look at the photo of the (former) antenna tower[1], http://www.LearnByDestroying.com/k6bj/K6BJ%20Repeater/slides/Antennas.html you'll notice that the Diamond X50 was located so that it would not be inside the antenna pattern of the upper Diamond F22a. The VHF antenna was also limited in height by the proximity of the county and Verizon radio vault and tower. This arrangement limited the length of the UHF antenna to approximately that of an X50. I could have used a longer UHF antenna, but I wanted altitude to clear some obstructions, rather than gain. Since the UHF antenna was side mounted, the grounded arm under the antenna tends to create some uptilt in the antenna pattern. With a fairly low gain antenna, such as the X50, the effect is minimal. Were it a higher gain antenna, which would have a narrower beamwidth, the effect would be sufficient to dramatically reduce signal strengths below the horizon. I've had to deal with this on mountain tops quite often, and have sometimes resorted to mounting the antenna upside-down in order to take advantage of the effect. For the curious, the black yagi is the 420MHz link to KI6EH. The coaxial antenna is a spare antenna for plugging in test equipment and HT's when working on the machines. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
Dual band antenna ???
On Sat, 9 Feb 2013 14:51:37 +0000, Channel Jumper
wrote: I was under the impression that this person was a HAM and wanted to talk as well as listen. Then we got into a discussion about scanners. Now I am confused. It may help to understand this is TUUK we are talking about. At least this time it isn't about saunas. |
Dual band antenna ???
On 2/10/2013 7:34 AM, Channel Jumper wrote:
tom;801584 Wrote: snip Your problem is - you want to use a choke with a off center fed antenna. Either to reduce the RF going into the shack or to reduce noise. If you really want to work DX, you don't want to use a choke. It would be better to use a BALUN / transformer before the coax enters the shack then to use a choke. Please explain the difference between a choke and a balun in this situation. tom K0TAR |
Quote:
Generally a balun consists of two wires (primary and secondary) and a toroid co it converts the electrical energy of the primary wire into a magnetic field. Depending on how the secondary wire is done the magnetic field is converted back to a electric field. A Choke - is simply a piece of coax or wire which is wound at the mininum bend radius of the coax. Several turns of coax makes a simple choke. You have to be very careful not to open up the shield by winding it too tightly. Baluns can take many forms and their presence is not always obvious. Sometimes, in the case of transformer baluns, they use magnetic coupling but need not do so. COMMON MODE CHOKES ARE ALSO USED AS BALUNS! and work by eliminating, rather than ignoring, common mode signals. The key word there is - used as baluns. If it was a Balun - they would call it a Balun Coax works on the principal of a Faraday Cage. Maybe you would like to explain for the people on this forum what a Faraday Cage is? |
Dual band antenna ???
On Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:36:32 +0000, Channel Jumper
wrote: A balun is an electrical device that converts between a balanced signal (two signals working against each other where ground is irrelevant) and an unbalanced signal (a single signal working against ground or (...) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balun Please provide a citation when plagerizing. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
Dual band antenna ???
On 2/12/2013 1:08 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:36:32 +0000, Channel Jumper wrote: A balun is an electrical device that converts between a balanced signal (two signals working against each other where ground is irrelevant) and an unbalanced signal (a single signal working against ground or (...) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balun Please provide a citation when plagerizing. He also didn't answer the question I asked, which would have been a much much shorter answer. tom K0TAR |
Dual band antenna ???
On Sunday, February 10, 2013 9:14:32 AM UTC-6, Ralph Mowery wrote:
When the lower radials were added the Ringo was suspose to work much beter. By that time, the Ringo had fallen out of favor around here so I do not know how well they worked. Main thing is that adding the radials defeated the purpose of the antenna, which was to eliminate the radials. Well maybe as far as the standard Ringo, which is a half wave. But the Ringo Ranger was a dual 5/8 collinear. Seems to me that design was used more to get more gain vs the shorter antennas, rather than trying to avoid radials. When it first came out, decoupling from the feed line was not given too much consideration, at least for lower cost amateur antennas.. And most that used it, thought it did OK. Likely because they had nothing better to compare to, or the feed line lengths, mounting, did not skew that pattern as bad in some cases, as it did others. The amount of skewing will vary some in each installation. It was pretty bad in my case. :( But then the Isopole came out.. And the roof caved in. lol.. The Isopole was so much better performing than the regular Ringo Ranger, that Cushcraft had no choice but to add some method of decoupling to their antenna, if they wanted to continue to sell many of them. So they added the lower 50 inches of coax, and a set of 1/4 wave radials at the bottom of that length of coax, which was grounded at that point, to the mast supporting the antenna. The decoupling section helped greatly, and saved Cushcraft from certain VHF vertical sales ruination. It was still slightly inferior to the method the Isopole used, but close enough to keep them in the game. Many preferred the RR2 because it was a bit less ugly than the Isopole. And maybe a bit cheaper, but I can't remember how they were priced at the time. The only band I ever used a 1/2 wave Ringo, was on 10m. And I ended up adding a Cushcraft type decoupling section to it. It worked very well. But the 5/8 antennas I used were better still.. But I didn't use 1/4 wave radials like most do with 5/8 ground planes. At that time, I used 3/4 wave radials, and the antenna doubled as an appx 1/4 GP on 30m. |
Dual band antenna ???
On Sunday, February 10, 2013 11:47:11 AM UTC-6, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
Did you perhaps mount the antenna over a metal roof or on a tower side arm? Without the decoupling section, the ground under the antenna will cause pattern uptilt. Nope.. It was a mounted on a metal mast that was on my non conducting roof. Probably about 30 feet off the ground or so. I think most of the skewing in my case was due to feed line radiation, more than effects from the ground. Thanks. That explains a few things. Incidentally, my rule "The uglier the antenna, the better it works" was originally based on the isopole antenna. They were kinda ugly, but they sure worked well. And some other companies have used that type of decoupling, but most were more like cylinders, instead of funnel like cones. Those were fairly common on some of the commercial verticals used for public service, etc.. Also, most of those were 1/2 waves. IE: 1/4 wave upper radiator, 1/4 wave lower cylinder to complete the antenna, and then a lower 1/4 wave cylinder below that one for decoupling. I think "Dodge" was one company that made those if I remember right. The upper part of each cylinder was closed, and the bottom open. |
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