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Power mount to raise it up when you're parked, otherwise leave it retracted, lest a bridge give you a severe re-tuning incident. |
"David G. Nagel" wrote in message ... Reg Edwards wrote: "SideBand" wrote in message m... Anyone out there know of any decent solution to getting 160M working in a mobile? The application is a semi-truck. I've got the Iron Horses for 75, 40, 20, 15, and 10M, but I'd like to work something out for 160 meters that will work on the truck. I know I'm going to take an efficiency hit, but you're doing that for everything except 10M on a Semi anyway.. Just so I can get a signal out there to be heard, in the off chance. ANY suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated. 73 de AI8W, Chris ============================= For design and performance of a 160 meter band vertical antenna, download program HELICAL3 from website below. There are other loaded vertical programs.. Use 1.5" or 2" diameter plastic pipe, with helical winding of thick enamel insulated wire, mounted on vehicle roof, as tall as possible, stayed, with short, top caapacitance tuning rod. Range on 160m with a few hundred watts = 100 miles at noon on groundwave. 1700 miles on very quiet, wiinter nights at midnight via F-layer. ---- .................................................. ......... Regards from Reg, G4FGQ For Free Radio Design Software go to http://www.btinternet.com/~g4fgq.regp .................................................. ......... Chris's problem is that he has to keep the tip of the antenna below about 13.5 feet from the ground to be legal with the various DOT's. Dave WD9BDZ Chris Must the antenna also only mount on the tractor? I just thought of a multi-turn loop, corners as far forward and back, wide as possible, above the cab. Use a tuner and balanced feed. 73 H. |
H. Adam Stevens, NQ5H wrote:
"David G. Nagel" wrote in message ... Reg Edwards wrote: "SideBand" wrote in message .com... Anyone out there know of any decent solution to getting 160M working in a mobile? The application is a semi-truck. I've got the Iron Horses for 75, 40, 20, 15, and 10M, but I'd like to work something out for 160 meters that will work on the truck. I know I'm going to take an efficiency hit, but you're doing that for everything except 10M on a Semi anyway.. Just so I can get a signal out there to be heard, in the off chance. ANY suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated. 73 de AI8W, Chris ============================= For design and performance of a 160 meter band vertical antenna, download program HELICAL3 from website below. There are other loaded vertical programs.. Use 1.5" or 2" diameter plastic pipe, with helical winding of thick enamel insulated wire, mounted on vehicle roof, as tall as possible, stayed, with short, top caapacitance tuning rod. Range on 160m with a few hundred watts = 100 miles at noon on groundwave. 1700 miles on very quiet, wiinter nights at midnight via F-layer. ---- ............................................... ............ Regards from Reg, G4FGQ For Free Radio Design Software go to http://www.btinternet.com/~g4fgq.regp ............................................... ............ Chris's problem is that he has to keep the tip of the antenna below about 13.5 feet from the ground to be legal with the various DOT's. Dave WD9BDZ Chris Must the antenna also only mount on the tractor? I just thought of a multi-turn loop, corners as far forward and back, wide as possible, above the cab. Use a tuner and balanced feed. 73 H. That's an idea, but most balanced tuners I know of are manual only, and it's hard enough keeping a 70-foot long, 80,000 lb vehicle on the road without trying to tune, too.. Thanks for the idea. de AI8W, Chris |
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Reg Edwards wrote:
"SideBand" wrote in message m... Anyone out there know of any decent solution to getting 160M working in a mobile? The application is a semi-truck. I've got the Iron Horses for 75, 40, 20, 15, and 10M, but I'd like to work something out for 160 meters that will work on the truck. I know I'm going to take an efficiency hit, but you're doing that for everything except 10M on a Semi anyway.. Just so I can get a signal out there to be heard, in the off chance. ANY suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated. 73 de AI8W, Chris ============================= For design and performance of a 160 meter band vertical antenna, download program HELICAL3 from website below. There are other loaded vertical programs.. Use 1.5" or 2" diameter plastic pipe, with helical winding of thick enamel insulated wire, mounted on vehicle roof, as tall as possible, stayed, with short, top caapacitance tuning rod. Range on 160m with a few hundred watts = 100 miles at noon on groundwave. 1700 miles on very quiet, wiinter nights at midnight via F-layer. ---- .................................................. ......... Regards from Reg, G4FGQ For Free Radio Design Software go to http://www.btinternet.com/~g4fgq.regp .................................................. ......... Reg: Thanks for this.. it'll help allot.. Question, though.. What should I put down for "earth electrode loss resistance"? I'll be using the truck's body as the ground plane. I'd just thought about doing this with a 2 foot (or so) 2 inch PVC pipe with end caps, feed point at the one end of the PVC, and a 102" whip out the other end. Now that I know this program exists, it's easier to think about! Since the SS whips are tapered, what would be a good guess for the diameter of it? Average it to 3mm? Or will it make that much of a difference? Thanks de AI8W, Chris |
"SideBand" wrote in message m... H. Adam Stevens, NQ5H wrote: "David G. Nagel" wrote in message ... Reg Edwards wrote: "SideBand" wrote in message y.com... Anyone out there know of any decent solution to getting 160M working in a mobile? The application is a semi-truck. I've got the Iron Horses for 75, 40, 20, 15, and 10M, but I'd like to work something out for 160 meters that will work on the truck. I know I'm going to take an efficiency hit, but you're doing that for everything except 10M on a Semi anyway.. Just so I can get a signal out there to be heard, in the off chance. ANY suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated. 73 de AI8W, Chris ============================= For design and performance of a 160 meter band vertical antenna, download program HELICAL3 from website below. There are other loaded vertical programs.. Use 1.5" or 2" diameter plastic pipe, with helical winding of thick enamel insulated wire, mounted on vehicle roof, as tall as possible, stayed, with short, top caapacitance tuning rod. Range on 160m with a few hundred watts = 100 miles at noon on groundwave. 1700 miles on very quiet, wiinter nights at midnight via F-layer. ---- .............................................. ............. Regards from Reg, G4FGQ For Free Radio Design Software go to http://www.btinternet.com/~g4fgq.regp .............................................. ............. Chris's problem is that he has to keep the tip of the antenna below about 13.5 feet from the ground to be legal with the various DOT's. Dave WD9BDZ Chris Must the antenna also only mount on the tractor? I just thought of a multi-turn loop, corners as far forward and back, wide as possible, above the cab. Use a tuner and balanced feed. 73 H. That's an idea, but most balanced tuners I know of are manual only, and it's hard enough keeping a 70-foot long, 80,000 lb vehicle on the road without trying to tune, too.. Thanks for the idea. de AI8W, Chris You don't have to use a balanced tuner. Terminate the loop into the truck body. What auto tuners cover 160? I never checked. 73 es gud luck de NQ5H |
H. Adam Stevens, NQ5H wrote:
"SideBand" wrote in message m... H. Adam Stevens, NQ5H wrote: "David G. Nagel" wrote in message ... Reg Edwards wrote: "SideBand" wrote in message gy.com... Anyone out there know of any decent solution to getting 160M working in a mobile? The application is a semi-truck. I've got the Iron Horses for 75, 40, 20, 15, and 10M, but I'd like to work something out for 160 meters that will work on the truck. I know I'm going to take an efficiency hit, but you're doing that for everything except 10M on a Semi anyway.. Just so I can get a signal out there to be heard, in the off chance. ANY suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated. 73 de AI8W, Chris ============================= For design and performance of a 160 meter band vertical antenna, download program HELICAL3 from website below. There are other loaded vertical programs.. Use 1.5" or 2" diameter plastic pipe, with helical winding of thick enamel insulated wire, mounted on vehicle roof, as tall as possible, stayed, with short, top caapacitance tuning rod. Range on 160m with a few hundred watts = 100 miles at noon on groundwave. 1700 miles on very quiet, wiinter nights at midnight via F-layer. ---- ............................................. .............. Regards from Reg, G4FGQ For Free Radio Design Software go to http://www.btinternet.com/~g4fgq.regp ............................................. .............. Chris's problem is that he has to keep the tip of the antenna below about 13.5 feet from the ground to be legal with the various DOT's. Dave WD9BDZ Chris Must the antenna also only mount on the tractor? I just thought of a multi-turn loop, corners as far forward and back, wide as possible, above the cab. Use a tuner and balanced feed. 73 H. That's an idea, but most balanced tuners I know of are manual only, and it's hard enough keeping a 70-foot long, 80,000 lb vehicle on the road without trying to tune, too.. Thanks for the idea. de AI8W, Chris You don't have to use a balanced tuner. Terminate the loop into the truck body. What auto tuners cover 160? I never checked. 73 es gud luck de NQ5H The AT-180 does.. so does Alinco's long wire tuner (which can be made to interface to my 706Mk][G).. There are others, I'm sure It'd be nice to just press a button and tune the sucker, that's for sure. But I'd also like to do it for as few dollars as I can.. de AI8W, Chris |
SideBand wrote:
Reg Edwards wrote: "SideBand" wrote in message m... Anyone out there know of any decent solution to getting 160M working in a mobile? The application is a semi-truck. I've got the Iron Horses for 75, 40, 20, 15, and 10M, but I'd like to work something out for 160 meters that will work on the truck. I know I'm going to take an efficiency hit, but you're doing that for everything except 10M on a Semi anyway.. Just so I can get a signal out there to be heard, in the off chance. ANY suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated. 73 de AI8W, Chris ============================= For design and performance of a 160 meter band vertical antenna, download program HELICAL3 from website below. There are other loaded vertical programs.. Use 1.5" or 2" diameter plastic pipe, with helical winding of thick enamel insulated wire, mounted on vehicle roof, as tall as possible, stayed, with short, top caapacitance tuning rod. Range on 160m with a few hundred watts = 100 miles at noon on groundwave. 1700 miles on very quiet, wiinter nights at midnight via F-layer. ---- .................................................. ......... Regards from Reg, G4FGQ For Free Radio Design Software go to http://www.btinternet.com/~g4fgq.regp .................................................. ......... Reg: Thanks for this.. it'll help allot.. Question, though.. What should I put down for "earth electrode loss resistance"? I'll be using the truck's body as the ground plane. I'd just thought about doing this with a 2 foot (or so) 2 inch PVC pipe with end caps, feed point at the one end of the PVC, and a 102" whip out the other end. Now that I know this program exists, it's easier to think about! Since the SS whips are tapered, what would be a good guess for the diameter of it? Average it to 3mm? Or will it make that much of a difference? Thanks de AI8W, Chris I know.. bad form to reply to your own post... Got something here I think will work... Resonant at 1.903 h=.61 d=510 (around 2", plus the insulation thickness.) n=28 w=3 l=2.49 r=3 e=5 ohms Makes for a 4.6kHz bandwidth (not wide, but I knew that going into this...) with an efficiency of 2.4 %.. 16.2dB down from "ideal", and 50ohms (or close) with a 4.1uF cap. Of course, this is assuming that the whip doesn't have to be perpendicular to the centerline of the coil. If it can be parallel to the coil (perpendicular to the winds), then this might work... I hope. I'm gonna play with it some more, and see what I can dig up.. Maybe a larger coil form will give a wider bandwidth? de AI8W, Chris |
SideBand wrote: H. Adam Stevens, NQ5H wrote: "SideBand" wrote in message m... Anyone out there know of any decent solution to getting 160M working in a mobile? The application is a semi-truck. I've got the Iron Horses for 75, 40, 20, 15, and 10M, but I'd like to work something out for 160 meters that will work on the truck. Are the "iron horses" like hamsticks, but another brand? What I would do is get another one. Doesn't really matter what band, but I would get the one that is tallest physically, and uses a tall "stinger" whip. Then strip it down, and make a "plastic bugcatcher" with a new wider coil. I use this type of antenna myself, except that mine is 80-10 with a coil than can be tapped for each band. For a 160m whip with no hat, coil position will have a large influence on efficiency. So if say you used a junk 6 ft tall hamstick, I would wind the new coil at the top of that glass whip, and then clamp a tall "4-5 ft" whip to the top of that. Use a thin plastic form to wind the coil on. On mine, the the coil is wound on an appx 3 inch plastic tube, and is capped on each end with a plastic peanut butter jar cap. Melt a hole large enough for the glass whip to insert snugly up the middle of that coil form, and apply some glue, etc to hold it in place. For an 80m antenna built in this manner, you would need appx 80-85-90 turns or so, plus or minus...That is about a foots worth of winding on the 3 inch form, if the windings are made from an insulated wire, say 18 gauge or so. The insulation will add some spacing to the windings, which is good.. My antenna is a 6 ft glass stick, with the coil at the 5 ft level. The coil is about a foot tall, end extends to the top of that glass mast. I use a 5 ft stinger whip, so my total length is 10 ft, or appx 3.3 m. To use 160m on the same stick, your coil will be slightly more than 3 times as long, to keep the same winding ratio. So if say on 80, the coil was at the 5 ft level, on a 6 ft "1.5m" base mast stick, ".3 m coil length in Reg's vertload program", on 160m, the coil would be 1 meter long, and the bottom of the coil would drop to about the .8 m level, but still extend to the top of that glass mast. Thats a pretty tall coil, and will have some weight with all that wire..So I wouldn't get carried away with wire gauge...I'd use 16-18 gauge or so... Anyway, thats about the cheapest way to make a 160m antenna that will work halfway well. It's a bugcatcher electrically...Of course, you will need a matching device.. To see a picture of mine, go to... http://web.wt.net/~nm5k/fd03-1.jpg Thats about the only pix I can dig up that shows the whole antenna. It's on the truck utility bed, about 4 ft off the ground at the base... Even with the distant picture, you can make out the stinger whip at top... Will give you an idea what I'm talking about... That one is 10 ft total. The glass whip was a 6 ft 20m hamstick, that was stripped of it's top coil. The stinger whip is 5 ft tall. You can see the homebrew coil at about the 5 ft level, extending to the top of the glass whip. The stinger is held on by two small hose clamps. That's the 80m coil, which is nearly a foot tall. If you converted that to 160m, the base of the coil would have to drop 2-3 ft, in order to have the top of the coil at the top of the glass stick. I know I'm going to take an efficiency hit, but you're doing that for everything except 10M on a Semi anyway.. Just so I can get a signal out there to be heard, in the off chance. Yep...Using vertload, my antenna has about a 14.7 % efficiency on 80m, using 6 ohms as the ground loss number...On 160m, using the described 160m coil, and same overall length, ground loss number, efficiency would drop to about 2.07 % ... But, thats the way the ball rolls....It will still work... I've worked many 160m mobiles.. A small amp would help... I think one of the "hamstick" type companies makes a 160m "hamstick", if you don't feel like making one... One thing to remember....On 160m, ground losses will almost certainly overshadow coil losses, so trying to make a super duper efficient coil, with real thick wire, is generally a waste of time. Always use the longest stinger you can get away with..I also have a solid 3 ft base mast that I can add, and make the antenna longer "13 ft" and more efficient. In that case, the coil is 8ft up, instead of 5 ft. Efficiency jumps up a good bit. It's not the prettiest thing, but it works real well on all bands 80-10. And the best part was it didn't cost me a dime. There is a black wire that taps the coil, but you can't really see it in that picture. I also would like to make a 160m antenna, and might just make me one like I described. I'll probably have a stand alone 160m antenna, and go back to that one, on the other bands. I have a quick disconnect. MK BTW, if you are curious...That truck is my 68 F-250...It's kinda old... I now also have yet another old ford..."74 F-100" It's got a camper also... I'm trying to decide where to mount the antenna on it...Not as easy as that 68. ...I'll probably have to install a ball mount on the cab on the other truck... I have a thing about old trucks...Kind of an illness...:/ I may eventually swap one out, and buy another small car...Can't decide which one I like best though.. That 68 in the pix has nearly been rebuilt mechanically...New engine, front end, etc, etc, etc...Needs to be repainted though... But the 74 is a bit smoother, being a 1/2 ton, instead of a 3/4 like the 68..Maybe better for long trips. The camper is a bit bigger and about a ft taller on the 74 also... Yes, we have newer cars too, but I don't drive them too much myself...:/ I like my "war wagons". People stay out of my way... |
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