On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 18:37:46 -0400, Buck wrote:

I like the bug-catcher idea, but I don't have the parts .

You don't have any WIRE? This is preposterous.

You split the vertical rise with an insulator and wind WIRE to fill
the gap. End of story. Your job is to make it mechanically sound at
70MPH and thumb your nose at what may be called Q here.

You want a bigger coil? Have dreams of that Q that marks status here?

Wrap a coffee can with several many wraps of paper so it clears all
seams and beads. Wrap turns of wire around the can/paper. Add epoxy
in nice neat lines along six lengths around the circumference (use
modeling or florist clay to build dams). Wait a couple of days for it
to cure. Take out the can and paper. Clean off the clay. Paint it
red, white, and blue!

What can 40 or 50 feet of wire, clay, three colors of paint, and an
ounce of epoxy cost? $5?

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

About 8 or 8 1/2ft.
Bob

Buck wrote:
On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 15:40:50 GMT, Bob wrote:

Used various SGC tuners and Icom AH-4. Also tried both of SGCs dual
loaded whips with varying results. The longer two piece unit worked
surprisingly well 80-10m years ago when conditions were better, even had
some fantastic 160m mobile contacts with it. The single 7ft version
lacks on 40 and especially 80m compared to the two piece whip but
compared to an unloaded 102” CB whip, it makes the CB whip look like a
dummy load on 40m and below. This is all with an SGC-230 feeding them.
Bob

How long is the two piece whip?

On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 16:32:50 -0700, Richard Clark
wrote:

On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 18:37:46 -0400, Buck wrote:

I like the bug-catcher idea, but I don't have the parts .

You don't have any WIRE? This is preposterous.

You split the vertical rise with an insulator and wind WIRE to fill
the gap. End of story. Your job is to make it mechanically sound at
70MPH and thumb your nose at what may be called Q here.

You want a bigger coil? Have dreams of that Q that marks status here?

Wrap a coffee can with several many wraps of paper so it clears all
seams and beads. Wrap turns of wire around the can/paper. Add epoxy
in nice neat lines along six lengths around the circumference (use
modeling or florist clay to build dams). Wait a couple of days for it
to cure. Take out the can and paper. Clean off the clay. Paint it
red, white, and blue!

What can 40 or 50 feet of wire, clay, three colors of paint, and an
ounce of epoxy cost? $5?

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC


LOL I haven't looked into that yet. I will. Thanks.


--
73 for now
Buck
N4PGW

On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:49:31 GMT, Bob wrote:

About 8 or 8 1/2ft.
Bob

Buck wrote:
On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 15:40:50 GMT, Bob wrote:

Used various SGC tuners and Icom AH-4. Also tried both of SGCs dual
loaded whips with varying results. The longer two piece unit worked
surprisingly well 80-10m years ago when conditions were better, even had
some fantastic 160m mobile contacts with it. The single 7ft version
lacks on 40 and especially 80m compared to the two piece whip but
compared to an unloaded 102” CB whip, it makes the CB whip look like a
dummy load on 40m and below. This is all with an SGC-230 feeding them.
Bob

How long is the two piece whip?
Is there more to the two-piece than just two pieces? Is it a loaded
fiberglass whip with a stinger, or two solid pieces of wire making up
one long stinger. If so, the cb whip is longer, if you have a loaded
section, the loaded section is longer.

--
73 for now
Buck
N4PGW

I believe the SGC whip is continuously loaded with a tapered pitch over
a large diameter fiberglass core and also has a straight internal
shorter section for higher freqs. No top stinger, just big, thick, ugly
black heatshrink coated. I think it resonates around 13 and 22MHz. Look
up an SG-303 in Google.
Bob


Buck wrote:

How long is the two piece whip?
Is there more to the two-piece than just two pieces? Is it a loaded
fiberglass whip with a stinger, or two solid pieces of wire making up
one long stinger. If so, the cb whip is longer, if you have a loaded
section, the loaded section is longer.

Ok, That makes sense


That gives me an idea. I wonder what stacking my 20 meter base on top
of my 40 meter base would produce. I'll try that today. I did some
testing, see my followup in this thread.

Thanks
Buck


On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 04:55:45 GMT, Bob wrote:

I believe the SGC whip is continuously loaded with a tapered pitch over
a large diameter fiberglass core and also has a straight internal
shorter section for higher freqs. No top stinger, just big, thick, ugly
black heatshrink coated. I think it resonates around 13 and 22MHz. Look
up an SG-303 in Google.
Bob


Buck wrote:

How long is the two piece whip?
Is there more to the two-piece than just two pieces? Is it a loaded
fiberglass whip with a stinger, or two solid pieces of wire making up
one long stinger. If so, the cb whip is longer, if you have a loaded
section, the loaded section is longer.




--
73 for now
Buck
N4PGW

Yesterday I bought the whip and put it on my existing ball mount on
the back left corner of my van. I still have the coax running to it
so there is about 20 feet of RG-58 (RadioShack brand) running from the
antenna to the tuner.

My preliminary results weren't good. It tunes all ham bands from 6
thru 17 easily. 20 starts getting finicky and the bands below seem to
cause arcing.

On the receive side, I am able to receive much better with the CB whip
than with either the 40 or 20 meter AS antennas on bands other than
what the AS antennas are designed for.

On transmit, things aren't so well. On 75 meters, I was able to hear
one person acknowledge that there was a mobile calling. I heard no
other response with any other band. Mind you, I was doing this from
just about sunset until about 11 PM with a long break for supper and a
short shopping trip. This wasn't the ideal time to test the antenna
for any band other than 40 and 80.

I heard some activity on 60 but no one responded to my call.

Today, if I don't get called into work, I plan to cut the wire next to
the antenna mount and install an SO-239 so I can wire the tuner
directly to the antenna or connect the coax to run to the front of the
van where I have the radio mounted.

I will test the antenna and try to compare it to the 40 and 20 meter
as antennas.

Just for kicks and giggles, I stacked the two antenna bases for 20 and
40 meters and added the steel whip to the top of the combo (that's
about 12 feet tall plus the height on the van.) The results weren't
good. The steel whip was too heavy and caused the antenna to bow to
the ground. I will try them today with and without the stinger to see
if that is a better combination than just the one band antenna. hmm,
20 + 40, that's 60 meters, right? lol.

It's 9 am here in Charlotte. I am going to read my email and go
experiment some more.

73 for now.


--
73 for now
Buck
N4PGW

Buck wrote:
Today, if I don't get called into work, I plan to cut the wire next to
the antenna mount and install an SO-239 so I can wire the tuner
directly to the antenna or connect the coax to run to the front of the
van where I have the radio mounted.

SGC recommends that no transmission line be used between the
tuner and the antenna because of arcing. Consider that to
force just one watt into a CB whip on 4 MHz, EZNEC says it
takes over 1700 volts.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 13:26:10 GMT, Cecil Moore
wrote:

Buck wrote:
Today, if I don't get called into work, I plan to cut the wire next to
the antenna mount and install an SO-239 so I can wire the tuner
directly to the antenna or connect the coax to run to the front of the
van where I have the radio mounted.

SGC recommends that no transmission line be used between the
tuner and the antenna because of arcing. Consider that to
force just one watt into a CB whip on 4 MHz, EZNEC says it
takes over 1700 volts.


Interesting. Thanks.

I am still testing. I tested with coax and the result is that the
antennas designed for a given frequency work much better on their
frequencies. I am looking for my soldering kit now for the
connectors.

I may try a direct connection to see what happens without coax if I
can.

back in a few.

n4pgw

--
73 for now
Buck
N4PGW

I just finished testing my antennas. The result is that the
whip/tuner combination is unacceptable.

I took the coax off the ball mount and ran short wires, about 6 inches
from the center lead of the ball and from the ground screw at the ball
inside the cab of the van and ran them to the appropriate connectors
on the tuner. I then tested 75, 40, and 20 meters.

The test results were that I made no contacts on 75. The only thing I
heard was a very slow and long monolog on 3872 by some man who seemed
more to be broadcasting than talking to another individual. I waited
over ten minutes to see if he would break or identify, but he did
neither. I went to 3.915 and heard two stations go QRT, but received
no response when I called. I didn't have another antenna worth
testing on 75 so that concluded my 75 meter test. Results: NO JOY!

I went to 40 meters where I heard some conversations. It tuned up
more easily than on 75, but no one answered my calls. I swapped to
the 40 meter AS antenna and the stations I heard went from no signal
on the scale to over s-9. That was enough to resolve that test.
Results: NO JOY!

I went to 20 meters where I had more success. I talked to Jim on the
county hunter's net with the whip antenna. He was the only station I
was hearing at the time. I swapped to the 20 meter AS antenna and his
signal strength went from s-2 to s-9. Also, I was able to hear the
mobile that was running. Results: NO JOY!

I hooked the coax back up, setup the 20 meter AS antenna and tuned it
from the front of the car. I will not be drilling a hole and
rearranging all the roof antennas for the whip. I will rather focus
my attention on getting the rest of the parts of my screwdriver
together after I get paid next week and see if I can install it.

Thanks for all the comments.

If nothing else, all this testing did reveal a bad ground connection
from the coax to the cab of the van. It is now fixed.

73 for now.


--
73 for now
Buck
N4PGW