I really like to build things. I can weld even small material with a
mig welder I have at home. You mentioned building a j pole. I thought
of doing this myself. To be honest, I have always wanted to make
something, (not necessarily an antenna) that I could sell for a few
extra dollars on ebay or something. I wonder if a person could make any
money building antennas and doing that? I am not wanting to get rich
but I like building things and I could use some "pocket money". We just
had our second shild born yesterday. It is my first son!

I thought about making a j-pole out of stainless steel tubing. It seems
this would be attractive because of it being rustproof and to me more
"visably appealing" that a copper one after it become tarnished. But
some people have told me there is more resistance in stainless than
copper. SOmeone else told me it would not amount to much in ham use.

Thought about building yagis too.

The only problem would be figuring out how to ship an antenna where it
would not cost much.

Strioed wrote:
"Someone told me it would not amount to much in ham use."

It`s how long te elements need to be that determines the loss stainless
steel adds to an antenna. For VHF, stainless is fine. For HF, you may be
creating a combination antenna and dummy load by using stainless in
place of aluminum or copper.

You can imitate what is usual commerciall practice for an amateur
antenna at similar frequencies. There are gold-plated antennas, but this
isn`t usual practice. It is extreme and certainly so for VHF. Some of
the best antennas used at VHF have long been stainless steel. The big
problem is stainless steel hardware which galls and binds. There is
bound to be an anti-sieze preparation to mitigate this bind.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

I would suggest that you get someone to calculate the antenna with NEC or
similar to get the right lengths and resistive loss. Then build an prototype
for 2m and 70cm and put it on eBay to check if there is any interest for the
antenna. To reduce the size it might be an idea to think about using Parker
tube fittings in some of the joints.

73
Geir



wrote in message
oups.com...
I really like to build things. I can weld even small material with a
mig welder I have at home. You mentioned building a j pole. I thought
of doing this myself. To be honest, I have always wanted to make
something, (not necessarily an antenna) that I could sell for a few
extra dollars on ebay or something. I wonder if a person could make any
money building antennas and doing that? I am not wanting to get rich
but I like building things and I could use some "pocket money". We just
had our second shild born yesterday. It is my first son!

I thought about making a j-pole out of stainless steel tubing. It seems
this would be attractive because of it being rustproof and to me more
"visably appealing" that a copper one after it become tarnished. But
some people have told me there is more resistance in stainless than
copper. SOmeone else told me it would not amount to much in ham use.

Thought about building yagis too.

The only problem would be figuring out how to ship an antenna where it
would not cost much.

Stainless steel causes significant loss only if the antenna is long and
small in diameter, such as an HF antenna (particularly one for the lower
frequency bands) made from stainless steel wire, or if the antenna is
electrically very small, such as a small tuned HF loop.

Your antenna isn't in either of those categories, so the stainless won't
cause any appreciable loss.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

wrote:
I really like to build things. I can weld even small material with a
mig welder I have at home. You mentioned building a j pole. I thought
of doing this myself. To be honest, I have always wanted to make
something, (not necessarily an antenna) that I could sell for a few
extra dollars on ebay or something. I wonder if a person could make any
money building antennas and doing that? I am not wanting to get rich
but I like building things and I could use some "pocket money". We just
had our second shild born yesterday. It is my first son!

I thought about making a j-pole out of stainless steel tubing. It seems
this would be attractive because of it being rustproof and to me more
"visably appealing" that a copper one after it become tarnished. But
some people have told me there is more resistance in stainless than
copper. SOmeone else told me it would not amount to much in ham use.

Thought about building yagis too.

The only problem would be figuring out how to ship an antenna where it
would not cost much.

geir knutsen wrote:
I would suggest that you get someone to calculate the antenna with
NEC or
similar to get the right lengths and resistive loss. Then build an
prototype
for 2m and 70cm and put it on eBay to check if there is any interest
for the
antenna. To reduce the size it might be an idea to think about using
Parker
tube fittings in some of the joints.

73
Geir

I really appreciate the advice! What is "NEC"? I assume it is an
antenna performance computer program?

Are you saying build a dual band prototype of one for each band?

What are "Parker tube fittings"?




wrote in message
oups.com...
I really like to build things. I can weld even small material with a
mig welder I have at home. You mentioned building a j pole. I
thought
of doing this myself. To be honest, I have always wanted to make
something, (not necessarily an antenna) that I could sell for a few
extra dollars on ebay or something. I wonder if a person could make
any
money building antennas and doing that? I am not wanting to get
rich
but I like building things and I could use some "pocket money". We
just
had our second shild born yesterday. It is my first son!

I thought about making a j-pole out of stainless steel tubing. It
seems
this would be attractive because of it being rustproof and to me
more
"visably appealing" that a copper one after it become tarnished.
But
some people have told me there is more resistance in stainless than
copper. SOmeone else told me it would not amount to much in ham
use.

Thought about building yagis too.

The only problem would be figuring out how to ship an antenna where
it
would not cost much.

Isnt it a copywrite problem if you copy someone else's antenna design?

Do they have these fititngs in stainless?

On 3 Jan 2005 13:13:40 -0800, wrote:

Isnt it a copywrite problem if you copy someone else's antenna design?

Hi OM,

We used to have a PhD here who would have claimed so (after having
claimed the Earth, Sea, and the Sky in patents "pending"). As a girl
friend of mine described "he had all of his sense educated out of
him."

Copyright covers claims to authorship and trade of the author's
product - which in this case the only tangible evidence is generally
found on paper in written or drawn form or in other means of
recording.

Patent covers claims to invention and trade of the inventor's product
- which in this case would be that antenna.

In either case, the law provides the author or inventor a means to
pursue his loss of profit if these works are duplicated without
license or permission. With few exceptions, Common Law would suggest
that the practice of duplication by an individual for their own use
(and not to produce for sale or distribution) is allowed. Copyright
and Patent are then issues of the marketplace, not the home.

Patents expire in time. Copyright expires after the author does (and
only many years after that). Both then enter into the Public Domain.

As far as legal advice goes, caveat reader. As I pointed out above,
the law provides a means, the courts, not a guarantee. Further, it
should come as no surprise that even lacking this, you can always be
taken to court - even if you don't get out of bed for fear of being
sued.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

Yes NEC is a antenna calculation program.
Try the Parker website and you will find the fittings I'm thinking about (
there is a similar type called swage lock)

Here is an example of an dual band j-pole
http://www.durm-online.de/jpole.htm
I have seen several variations of this design, but can't find any of the
links.

Geir

wrote in message
oups.com...

geir knutsen wrote:
I would suggest that you get someone to calculate the antenna with
NEC or
similar to get the right lengths and resistive loss. Then build an
prototype
for 2m and 70cm and put it on eBay to check if there is any interest
for the
antenna. To reduce the size it might be an idea to think about using
Parker
tube fittings in some of the joints.

73
Geir

I really appreciate the advice! What is "NEC"? I assume it is an
antenna performance computer program?

Are you saying build a dual band prototype of one for each band?

What are "Parker tube fittings"?




wrote in message
oups.com...
I really like to build things. I can weld even small material with a
mig welder I have at home. You mentioned building a j pole. I
thought
of doing this myself. To be honest, I have always wanted to make
something, (not necessarily an antenna) that I could sell for a few
extra dollars on ebay or something. I wonder if a person could make
any
money building antennas and doing that? I am not wanting to get
rich
but I like building things and I could use some "pocket money". We
just
had our second shild born yesterday. It is my first son!

I thought about making a j-pole out of stainless steel tubing. It
seems
this would be attractive because of it being rustproof and to me
more
"visably appealing" that a copper one after it become tarnished.
But
some people have told me there is more resistance in stainless than
copper. SOmeone else told me it would not amount to much in ham
use.

Thought about building yagis too.

The only problem would be figuring out how to ship an antenna where
it
would not cost much.

Patent covers claims to invention and trade of the inventor's product
- which in this case would be that antenna.

Right. And, the invention claimed must be novel (new), useful, and
non-obvious to a skilled practitioner of the art. In theory, it has
to actually work (otherwise it isn't "useful") but in most cases the
Patent Office seems to have stopped requiring any sort of actual
evidence on this point.

Antenna designs which were originally published decades ago (and that
seems to be most of them) cannot now be patented. Neither, in
principle, can slight or trivial or obvious variations on older
antennas.

In either case, the law provides the author or inventor a means to
pursue his loss of profit if these works are duplicated without
license or permission. With few exceptions, Common Law would suggest
that the practice of duplication by an individual for their own use
(and not to produce for sale or distribution) is allowed.

My understanding is that this is true to some extent for copyright
(the "fair use" principle). I've been told that it is _not_ true for
patented inventions. You're allowed to re-create the patented
invention yourself in order to study it, or to figure out a different
way of achieving the same goal (that is, a similar device which
doesn't actually infringe on the patent). However, re-creating the
patented invention for actual personal use is not allowed.

In practice, of course, this usually goes undetected and nobody gives
a hoot. Some patentholders have a practice of offering anyone who
asks a license to manufacture one (or a few) of the devices, for their
own use, with no royalty fee... but patentholders are _not_ required
to do so, or to license the patent to anyone at all.

Some years ago, the Bose corporation earned itself some bad blood in
the audiophile community, by sending a stern letter to Speaker Builder
magazine stating that a homebrew speaker-building article published
therein used a design which Bose felt infringed on one of their
patents (a "birdhouse" multi-chamber resonator design, I believe).
They accused Speaker Builder of "contributory infringement" of the
patent (i.e. encouraging others to infringe). This action was viewed
by many of the magazine's readers as an example of a big, monied
corporation bullying individuals.

As far as legal advice goes, caveat reader. As I pointed out above,
the law provides a means, the courts, not a guarantee. Further, it
should come as no surprise that even lacking this, you can always be
taken to court - even if you don't get out of bed for fear of being
sued.

A very good point!

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the 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!