|
discone antenna
Getting ready to purchase a ICOM 8500, and as I live in a community
where a long wire would be out of the question, I have been told that a discone will work quite well for my monitoring activities, and will be rather hard for the grumpy neighbors to see, as compared to a beam, etc. etc.... . Any comments on this? How high should I install it. Probably cant go over 15 or 20 feet at the most. I intend to use some type of telescoping mast, so when one of our Florida hurricanes comes, I can "bring er down"! Since the antenna will be coupled to the mast, will I still need to ground it? (I know thats probably a really stupid question, but it seems as if the metal mast would take a lightning strike (God forbid!) to the ground, rather than into the house..(??) A neighbor of mine has a little discone up around 15 ft., and uses it to transmit on the 6 meter (or is it 20 meter) bank. Works quite well, he says. Thanks in advance for any info |
Gene wrote: Getting ready to purchase a ICOM 8500, and as I live in a community where a long wire would be out of the question, I have been told that a discone will work quite well for my monitoring activities, and will be rather hard for the grumpy neighbors to see, as compared to a beam, etc. etc.... . Any comments on this? How high should I install it. Probably cant go over 15 or 20 feet at the most. I intend to use some type of telescoping mast, so when one of our Florida hurricanes comes, I can "bring er down"! Since the antenna will be coupled to the mast, will I still need to ground it? (I know thats probably a really stupid question, but it seems as if the metal mast would take a lightning strike (God forbid!) to the ground, rather than into the house..(??) A neighbor of mine has a little discone up around 15 ft., and uses it to transmit on the 6 meter (or is it 20 meter) bank. Works quite well, he says. Thanks in advance for any info You'll most certainly need (or want) some other sort of antenna other than the discone to monitor shortwave. dxAce |
I use a discone on my VR-5000 and PCR-1000. They work well for me from 900
down to WWV at 2500. "Gene" wrote in message ... Getting ready to purchase a ICOM 8500, and as I live in a community where a long wire would be out of the question, I have been told that a discone will work quite well for my monitoring activities, and will be rather hard for the grumpy neighbors to see, as compared to a beam, etc. etc.... . Any comments on this? How high should I install it. Probably cant go over 15 or 20 feet at the most. I intend to use some type of telescoping mast, so when one of our Florida hurricanes comes, I can "bring er down"! Since the antenna will be coupled to the mast, will I still need to ground it? (I know thats probably a really stupid question, but it seems as if the metal mast would take a lightning strike (God forbid!) to the ground, rather than into the house..(??) A neighbor of mine has a little discone up around 15 ft., and uses it to transmit on the 6 meter (or is it 20 meter) bank. Works quite well, he says. Thanks in advance for any info |
Gene wrote: Getting ready to purchase a ICOM 8500, and as I live in a community where a long wire would be out of the question, I have been told that a discone will work quite well for my monitoring activities, and will be rather hard for the grumpy neighbors to see, as compared to a beam, etc. etc.... . Any comments on this? How high should I install it. Probably cant go over 15 or 20 feet at the most. I intend to use some type of telescoping mast, so when one of our Florida hurricanes comes, I can "bring er down"! Since the antenna will be coupled to the mast, will I still need to ground it? (I know thats probably a really stupid question, but it seems as if the metal mast would take a lightning strike (God forbid!) to the ground, rather than into the house..(??) A neighbor of mine has a little discone up around 15 ft., and uses it to transmit on the 6 meter (or is it 20 meter) bank. Works quite well, he says. Thanks in advance for any info You can use a discone for 30 Mhz and up for sure. the performance below that falls off very quick. I use my discone with an ICOM R7000. As for grounding yes you have to ground the anttena. It is for safety as the lightening may want to flow down your coax lead in no matter what is struck by the lightening. Lightening goes everywhere when it hits and into the house via the coax is a good possibliity. My discone sits on top of 2-10 foot mast sections. The coax is fed to a gound rod via an anti satic device, then on to the radio. the mast is bolted to my dack so is easy to take down You could use the 20 mast as an antenna. run coax to the mast and secure it to the bottom. You now have a 20 foot vertical antenna that will be fine on SW. There is more info about grounding and antennas at the AMANDX site below -- 73 and Best of DX Shawn Axelrod VE4DX1SMA Visit the AMANDX DX site with info for the new or experienced listener: http://www.angelfire.com/mb/amandx/index.html REMEMBER ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN HEAR FOREVER |
Jim Hackett wrote: I use a discone on my VR-5000 and PCR-1000. They work well for me from 900 down to WWV at 2500. I wouldn't disagree that the discone will indeed 'work' down that low, but will it work well? That's the question. Heck, a 5' piece of wire will work, but the question remains, will it work well? I've never seen a 'discone' that would work well into the shortwave range unless it was one of the humongous ones such as that used by the FCC at their monitoring station which used to be located south of me here. dxAce "Gene" wrote in message ... Getting ready to purchase a ICOM 8500, and as I live in a community where a long wire would be out of the question, I have been told that a discone will work quite well for my monitoring activities, and will be rather hard for the grumpy neighbors to see, as compared to a beam, etc. etc.... . Any comments on this? How high should I install it. Probably cant go over 15 or 20 feet at the most. I intend to use some type of telescoping mast, so when one of our Florida hurricanes comes, I can "bring er down"! Since the antenna will be coupled to the mast, will I still need to ground it? (I know thats probably a really stupid question, but it seems as if the metal mast would take a lightning strike (God forbid!) to the ground, rather than into the house..(??) A neighbor of mine has a little discone up around 15 ft., and uses it to transmit on the 6 meter (or is it 20 meter) bank. Works quite well, he says. Thanks in advance for any info |
On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 08:29:47 -0500, The Axelrods
wrote: Thanks in advance for any info You can use a discone for 30 Mhz and up for sure. the performance below that falls off very quick. I use my discone with an ICOM R7000. As for grounding yes you have to ground the anttena. It is for safety as the lightening may want to flow down your coax lead in no matter what is struck by the lightening. Lightening goes everywhere when it hits and into the house via the coax is a good possibliity. My discone sits on top of 2-10 foot mast sections. The coax is fed to a gound rod via an anti satic device, then on to the radio. the mast is bolted to my dack so is easy to take down Can you expound a little on this.. "anti static" device? Not quite sure I know what this one is. You could use the 20 mast as an antenna. run coax to the mast and secure it to the bottom. You now have a 20 foot vertical antenna that will be fine on SW. Run this one to a ground rod also, as the above? There is more info about grounding and antennas at the AMANDX site below Maybe should have gone there before I post this.. Thanks! Gene |
You might wan to consider the AOR SA7000 antenna.
http://tinyurl.com/x6to It's pretty expensive, but it does cover shortwave frequencies as well as VHF/UHF. It also has the added benefit of being pretty discrete. "Gene" wrote in message ... Getting ready to purchase a ICOM 8500, and as I live in a community where a long wire would be out of the question, I have been told that a discone will work quite well for my monitoring activities, and will be rather hard for the grumpy neighbors to see, as compared to a beam, etc. etc.... . Any comments on this? How high should I install it. Probably cant go over 15 or 20 feet at the most. I intend to use some type of telescoping mast, so when one of our Florida hurricanes comes, I can "bring er down"! Since the antenna will be coupled to the mast, will I still need to ground it? (I know thats probably a really stupid question, but it seems as if the metal mast would take a lightning strike (God forbid!) to the ground, rather than into the house..(??) A neighbor of mine has a little discone up around 15 ft., and uses it to transmit on the 6 meter (or is it 20 meter) bank. Works quite well, he says. Thanks in advance for any info |
|
|
On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 09:20:04 -0500, "mike0219116"
wrote: You might wan to consider the AOR SA7000 antenna. http://tinyurl.com/x6to It's pretty expensive, but it does cover shortwave frequencies as well as VHF/UHF. It also has the added benefit of being pretty discrete. Thanks Mike.. The SA7000 looks like it might be a better alternative, and actually less obtrusive than the discone. The SA7000 on a 20' mast ought to be a good choice. |
My discone works BETTR than my 60ft. random wire or my slinky di-pole.
Believe it or not. Makes no difference to me... "BDK" wrote in message ... In article k.net, says... I use a discone on my VR-5000 and PCR-1000. They work well for me from 900 down to WWV at 2500. "Gene" wrote in message ... Getting ready to purchase a ICOM 8500, and as I live in a community where a long wire would be out of the question, I have been told that a discone will work quite well for my monitoring activities, and will be rather hard for the grumpy neighbors to see, as compared to a beam, etc. etc.... . Any comments on this? How high should I install it. Probably cant go over 15 or 20 feet at the most. I intend to use some type of telescoping mast, so when one of our Florida hurricanes comes, I can "bring er down"! Since the antenna will be coupled to the mast, will I still need to ground it? (I know thats probably a really stupid question, but it seems as if the metal mast would take a lightning strike (God forbid!) to the ground, rather than into the house..(??) A neighbor of mine has a little discone up around 15 ft., and uses it to transmit on the 6 meter (or is it 20 meter) bank. Works quite well, he says. Thanks in advance for any info "Works well" is relative. Compared to about any other antenna, a Discone really is a poor performer at VHF, let alone SW. But, compared to NO antenna, it works well. A 40 ft piece of wire on the attic floor should, and almost has to blow it away on SW. On scanner freqs, the simplest ground plane is amazingly better than a discone. BDK |
Your coax needs to be groounded at the (outside) house entrance by code.
"Gene" wrote in message ... Getting ready to purchase a ICOM 8500, and as I live in a community where a long wire would be out of the question, I have been told that a discone will work quite well for my monitoring activities, and will be rather hard for the grumpy neighbors to see, as compared to a beam, etc. etc.... . Any comments on this? How high should I install it. Probably cant go over 15 or 20 feet at the most. I intend to use some type of telescoping mast, so when one of our Florida hurricanes comes, I can "bring er down"! Since the antenna will be coupled to the mast, will I still need to ground it? (I know thats probably a really stupid question, but it seems as if the metal mast would take a lightning strike (God forbid!) to the ground, rather than into the house..(??) A neighbor of mine has a little discone up around 15 ft., and uses it to transmit on the 6 meter (or is it 20 meter) bank. Works quite well, he says. Thanks in advance for any info |
Could happen. If the radio is prone to overloading and the disc isn't to
much for it and the others are, it would work better. "BDK" wrote in message ... In article .net, says... My discone works BETTR than my 60ft. random wire or my slinky di-pole. Believe it or not. Makes no difference to me... "BDK" wrote in message ... In article k.net, says... I use a discone on my VR-5000 and PCR-1000. They work well for me from 900 down to WWV at 2500. "Gene" wrote in message ... Getting ready to purchase a ICOM 8500, and as I live in a community where a long wire would be out of the question, I have been told that a discone will work quite well for my monitoring activities, and will be rather hard for the grumpy neighbors to see, as compared to a beam, etc. etc.... . Any comments on this? How high should I install it. Probably cant go over 15 or 20 feet at the most. I intend to use some type of telescoping mast, so when one of our Florida hurricanes comes, I can "bring er down"! Since the antenna will be coupled to the mast, will I still need to ground it? (I know thats probably a really stupid question, but it seems as if the metal mast would take a lightning strike (God forbid!) to the ground, rather than into the house..(??) A neighbor of mine has a little discone up around 15 ft., and uses it to transmit on the 6 meter (or is it 20 meter) bank. Works quite well, he says. Thanks in advance for any info "Works well" is relative. Compared to about any other antenna, a Discone really is a poor performer at VHF, let alone SW. But, compared to NO antenna, it works well. A 40 ft piece of wire on the attic floor should, and almost has to blow it away on SW. On scanner freqs, the simplest ground plane is amazingly better than a discone. BDK Well, I don't. Not that it matters to me either. You may want to check your coax though... BDK |
CW wrote: Your coax needs to be groounded at the (outside) house entrance by code. Whose code? dxAce |
In article , "CW" no adddress@spam
free.com says... Could happen. If the radio is prone to overloading and the disc isn't to much for it and the others are, it would work better. "BDK" wrote in message ... In article .net, says... My discone works BETTR than my 60ft. random wire or my slinky di-pole. Believe it or not. Makes no difference to me... "BDK" wrote in message ... In article k.net, says... I use a discone on my VR-5000 and PCR-1000. They work well for me from 900 down to WWV at 2500. "Gene" wrote in message ... Getting ready to purchase a ICOM 8500, and as I live in a community where a long wire would be out of the question, I have been told that a discone will work quite well for my monitoring activities, and will be rather hard for the grumpy neighbors to see, as compared to a beam, etc. etc.... . Any comments on this? How high should I install it. Probably cant go over 15 or 20 feet at the most. I intend to use some type of telescoping mast, so when one of our Florida hurricanes comes, I can "bring er down"! Since the antenna will be coupled to the mast, will I still need to ground it? (I know thats probably a really stupid question, but it seems as if the metal mast would take a lightning strike (God forbid!) to the ground, rather than into the house..(??) A neighbor of mine has a little discone up around 15 ft., and uses it to transmit on the 6 meter (or is it 20 meter) bank. Works quite well, he says. Thanks in advance for any info "Works well" is relative. Compared to about any other antenna, a Discone really is a poor performer at VHF, let alone SW. But, compared to NO antenna, it works well. A 40 ft piece of wire on the attic floor should, and almost has to blow it away on SW. On scanner freqs, the simplest ground plane is amazingly better than a discone. BDK Well, I don't. Not that it matters to me either. You may want to check your coax though... BDK Yeah, my old Yaesu FRG-8800 didn't like my huge Slinky Dipole at all, Even with a ton of attenuation, the ever lovin nearby country station was twanging away in the background on any strong signal. I ended up chopping about half of it off on each side, and with a tuner, and an AMBC killer I threw together (about 40 DB down at 1560KHZ), it was tolerable. I haven't played around with either radio he's using on the discone with good results, but from what I've read, neither one likes a lot of antenna.. BDK |
dxAce wrote:
CW wrote: Your coax needs to be groounded at the (outside) house entrance by code. Whose code? Bureaucrats never rest. http://cablingdb.com/Standards/570/570Main.asp http://www.engineeringharmonics.com/papers/s_vc.htm This site mention some rule numbers ============================== Antenna systems add yet another dimension to the electrical code, especially if the access point or antenna will be mounted outdoors. For the most part, you need to be concerned with the grounding of the outer conductor of antenna transmission line (coaxial cable) when the antenna is placed outdoors. Pay careful attention to the proper grounding distances, bonding, and soil conductivity. This is to prevent and reduce the effect of surges produced by lightning strikes. Article 810 covers 'Radio and Television Equipment' while Article 820 covers 'CATV and Radio Distribution Systems' in the NEC. Also note the guidelines for conductors entering a building in Article 800 part II. With the rapid expansion of both consumer and enterprise grade wireless devices, the electrical code has some catching up to do and more detail on WLAN may be covered in the 2005 version. http://www.isp-planet.com/fixed_wire...2004/code.html ===================================== mike -- __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / / / /\ \/ /\ \/ /\ \/ / /_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ ..let the cat out to reply.. ©Densa International 'Think tanks cleaned cheap' |
NEC.
"dxAce" wrote in message ... CW wrote: Your coax needs to be groounded at the (outside) house entrance by code. Whose code? dxAce |
Must not be applicable around here, I've never had a single problem when any
inspector has come around. dxAce CW wrote: NEC. "dxAce" wrote in message ... CW wrote: Your coax needs to be groounded at the (outside) house entrance by code. Whose code? dxAce |
Unlikely they know the code outside of standard building practice. I do
believe that they can require more but not less than NEC. "dxAce" wrote in message ... Must not be applicable around here, I've never had a single problem when any inspector has come around. dxAce CW wrote: NEC. "dxAce" wrote in message ... CW wrote: Your coax needs to be groounded at the (outside) house entrance by code. Whose code? dxAce |
| All times are GMT +1. The time now is 01:18 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
RadioBanter.com