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Post by BBB on Nov 4, 2016 17:24:25 GMT -5
I believe that "height is might" and the radiation pattern of a vertically polarized Imax, Penetrator or the flat pattern of the Sirio Gain Master antenna would have good coverage even in the valley below. Something else is going on. Do you have access to a MFJ 259 antenna analyzer?
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Post by whitetail on Nov 4, 2016 17:47:47 GMT -5
I believe that "height is might" and the radiation pattern of a vertically polarized Imax, Penetrator or the flat pattern of the Sirio Gain Master antenna would have good coverage even in the valley below. Something else is going on. Do you have access to a MFJ 259 antenna analyzer? I agree with everything you say. No I dont have access to a mfj 259 antenna analyzer. ( I dont even know what that does)
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Post by whitetail on Nov 4, 2016 18:08:06 GMT -5
Sandbagger, All the information is coming together now and making sense. So you know My location is is up on a mountain plateau at 2,300 elevation. Because my antenna is up higher it can see further to the horizon. Lets talk about my buddy 40 miles away, Sitting at 1,400ft. Same time of year testing. He always said I was a good solid 4s units now, Iam at a 1s unit. This is because my antenna is higher now my signal is now skipping somewhat past him correct? So my local conversations wont be as strong of signal but I will still be heard? I hate to get another antenna because I know the Imax can talk, I talked to alaska to Wales England, and many more locations. I know I cant have the best of both worlds, with a strong signal locally and dx. Do you think a groundplane on the Imax will help me out any, locally &dx? I know others say dont waste the money it doesnt do anything, but every setup is different and will perform diffferent as well. I looked at the groundplane for the imax ant these (4) 6'radials point down at a 45* angle, while other antennas radials point straight out at a 90*angle. What is the differnce here? Iam using belden RG-8 coax, 100' run, if I do a rf choke at the feed point I will have to get another 50' and have a connection in between. I was considering the hy=gain spt-500 penetrator antenna www.hy-gain.com/Product.php?productid=SPT-500 . Iam sure you herd of this antenna back in the late 70's and 80's. People loved them (just going by other posts I red) Thanks for helping me out, Iam slowly learning as things develop on this end, and now it is making sense in the prev posts of antenna height and signal to the horizon! Thanks I can't really give you a solid, one-size-fits-all answer because the nature of RF varies and what works in one situation may not work in another. But it does sound like you are way up in height, with nothing blocking your signal. So the higher tower might be putting your signal over top of those lower in height. Then again, I would not put all of your money on what one other station reports back. You should try to get reports from several other people, and gauge whether or not your line-of-sight local path has improved or not. I would not put much weight in skip contacts. You can be in the bottom of a valley and still do well via sky wave, as long as you have an unobstructed path to the sky. So 40 or 50 more feet should not make any difference in skipland. Although if the additional height changes your radiation angle, THAT may make a difference both locally and DX. I don't have personal experience with the radial kit for the Imax. I have read reports that have said that it improved performance, and other reports that said just the opposite. So I can neither recommend it or not. I was a big fan of the Super Penetrator antenna back in the day. It was the best ground plane you could get. You wouldn't go wrong with an antenna like that. Given your height, you'd probably also do well with an Astroplane type antenna, as that had a very low angle of radiation, which you need at your height. You should not need 50' of additional feedline to make an 8 turn, 8" diameter choke. I would think you'd get by with less than 20'. RG-8 cable has much less loss than RG-58, but it's not as good as RG-213 or LMR-400. At 100', you should have about 1db of loss. If you ran LMR400, that loss would drop to .6db. Here's a handy cable loss calculator, that you can use to compare different coaxial cable ratings: www.timesmicrowave.com/calculator/Yes Iam up and away from everything with nothing blocking the signal. I would of thought how I had it temporary would of been worse, 20' up behind the house with just a portion of the middle section above the roof. After reading your post earlier I ended up going and getting a groundplane kit this afternoon from bobs cb shop, so I can tinker this weekend. They said that this will help in my situation, so we will see. This weekend I will do some reports, starting with doing an RF choke. and then putting the groundplane on and seeing what happens. While driving down there I took a different way that I normaly do, and saw all kinds of old towers and antennas still attached to them, alot were peoples houses weather they still use them I dont know, a few were on old camps and such. You know what, they all had a groundplane kit of somewhat on every one. Could it very well be the elevation we are at here? Kind of makes you wonder why there wasnt just a straight antenna they all had radials. I guess the airwaves in this area were busy back in the good ale days. I will keep you informed in what happens. Thanks for the information on the coax.
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Post by BBB on Nov 5, 2016 11:30:41 GMT -5
The antenna analyzer would be able to help check some other parameters, other than SWR, such as impedance and reactance to better assist you in tuning the antenna for peak performance and resonance. Not a required tool by any means. It could be that the old location of the antenna afforded a some form of reflection that enhanced your directivity towards the other local operator, which unbeknownst to you, may have also decreased your signal output in other directions. Now that the antenna is in the free-&-clear your signal should radiate more uniformly (in a 360 degree pattern) but may be down a bit towards the operator that said your signal had decreased slightly. I have used the Imax with the GPK (ground plane kit) in the past, but it got an instant epic visual fail from the wife when she saw it, haha. Since my Imax was mounted to the chimney on my house that has a 36' run of metal flue pipe to the metal fire place, I already had enough metal under the Imax to not see much of a difference with or without the GPK. Hope it works out better for ya. Maybe time for CB Radio helper??
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Nov 5, 2016 16:42:14 GMT -5
Maybe time for CB Radio helper?? Looks like an Ol' Zero-Five special.........
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Post by whitetail on Nov 8, 2016 13:27:55 GMT -5
update. I installed the groundplane kit, only. I only wanted to do one thing at a time so if there were a change I would know what it was. The groundplane helped in the fact of the tap light does not turn on when I key the mic and talk, so thats a plus. Talked on it for two nights and still the signal is lower then what it was before, a station 10 miles away I used to hit him with a solid 9sunits,(before the tower was up) he reported me at a 5 swinging 7. There is still something going on, maybe Iam too high for my elevation.? Why would the Imax perform better lower to the ground. The tip of the tower is 3' below the bottom of the feedpoint of the antenna. I lowered the tower today and put 6 wraps of coax 6" below the feedpoint of the antenna. Test No tap light came on and no interfeerence in the house.
Some swr readings
ch 40 1.1
ch 1 1.2
ch 40 1.1 1/2
ch 1 1.3
The second set of numbers are with an amp turned on. conditions were at night with the sky full of stars. The next morning the results were the same.
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Nov 8, 2016 16:37:17 GMT -5
update. I installed the groundplane kit, only. I only wanted to do one thing at a time so if there were a change I would know what it was. The groundplane helped in the fact of the tap light does not turn on when I key the mic and talk, so thats a plus. Talked on it for two nights and still the signal is lower then what it was before, a station 10 miles away I used to hit him with a solid 9sunits,(before the tower was up) he reported me at a 5 swinging 7. There is still something going on, maybe Iam too high for my elevation.? Why would the Imax perform better lower to the ground. The tip of the tower is 3' below the bottom of the feedpoint of the antenna. I lowered the tower today and put 6 wraps of coax 6" below the feedpoint of the antenna. Test No tap light came on and no interfeerence in the house. Some swr readings ch 40 1.1 ch 1 1.2 ch 40 1.1 1/2 ch 1 1.3 The second set of numbers are with an amp turned on. conditions were at night with the sky full of stars. The next morning the results were the same. Your amp must be very clean as the SWR readings don't change much. That's a good thing! A proper set of radials should perform the same RF current blocking as the coax choke does. Since the interference to your tap light went away, they must be working, at least in that capacity. Did the radials improve your signal at all, or was it the same? For an experiment, you could temporarily move the antenna back to its original location, to get signal reports. Don't change anything else but the antenna location. Use the same feedline as well. That will be a better A/B test.
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Post by whitetail on Nov 8, 2016 22:39:58 GMT -5
update. I installed the groundplane kit, only. I only wanted to do one thing at a time so if there were a change I would know what it was. The groundplane helped in the fact of the tap light does not turn on when I key the mic and talk, so thats a plus. Talked on it for two nights and still the signal is lower then what it was before, a station 10 miles away I used to hit him with a solid 9sunits,(before the tower was up) he reported me at a 5 swinging 7. There is still something going on, maybe Iam too high for my elevation.? Why would the Imax perform better lower to the ground. The tip of the tower is 3' below the bottom of the feedpoint of the antenna. I lowered the tower today and put 6 wraps of coax 6" below the feedpoint of the antenna. Test No tap light came on and no interfeerence in the house. Some swr readings ch 40 1.1 ch 1 1.2 ch 40 1.1 1/2 ch 1 1.3 The second set of numbers are with an amp turned on. conditions were at night with the sky full of stars. The next morning the results were the same. Your amp must be very clean as the SWR readings don't change much. That's a good thing! A proper set of radials should perform the same RF current blocking as the coax choke does. Since the interference to your tap light went away, they must be working, at least in that capacity. Did the radials improve your signal at all, or was it the same? For an experiment, you could temporarily move the antenna back to its original location, to get signal reports. Don't change anything else but the antenna location. Use the same feedline as well. That will be a better A/B test. Yes the radials helped out, how I know is that the light does not come on by it self anymore. That is the only area that it helped out. I just did the rf choke for to see if there would be anymore difference anywhere. With the ground plane installed, Talked to my frequient station 38 miles away, with no signal change at all reported. I was thinking that as well moving it back temporarily where it was last winter, that would be a good test, that would tell us what is happening! Thanks On a good note whatever I can hear, I can talk back to them. Its been 3 consecutive days now that I been getting skip in, I talked to a station in Seattle Washington, and the mid west states. So it seams like the antenna likes the height for skip talking, because no matter whenever I key down and call for someone they return the call, (when skip is rolling of course) But locally there is something still wrong, maybe I may have to take a section of tower off to get down to the magic 36' rule. I will try the old location first, then go from there, it will be a few days before I can get to it!
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Post by captbarry on Nov 28, 2016 21:30:13 GMT -5
All good stuff here! I too agree that with a vertically polarized antenna put it up in the air, now then all of that changes if you are running flat side . I ran an Imax with and without the radial kit and could not tell a lot of difference. I thought it might have been a little quieter with the kit. These days I run a Penetrator just as I did back in the 70's. It is mounted on a tower with the base at 40 feet and I can't be happier! I'd urge anyone that has the space to give this antenna a try. It is quiet, bleeds off static very well and I can hear a fly fart three states away!!!! It is the best ground wave antenna I have used. It does work well on sky wave but not as well as my 3 element beam mounted flat side and that is what you would expect. Sorry I have not been around for awhile, health problems....... Hope to catch up on the Round Up on Wednesday night. 73's Capt Barry
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Nov 28, 2016 21:39:36 GMT -5
All good stuff here! I too agree that with a vertically polarized antenna put it up in the air, now then all of that changes if you are running flat side . I ran an Imax with and without the radial kit and could not tell a lot of difference. I thought it might have been a little quieter with the kit. These days I run a Penetrator just as I did back in the 70's. It is mounted on a tower with the base at 40 feet and I can't be happier! I'd urge anyone that has the space to give this antenna a try. It is quiet, bleeds off static very well and I can hear a fly fart three states away!!!! It is the best ground wave antenna I have used. It does work well on sky wave but not as well as my 3 element beam mounted flat side and that is what you would expect. Sorry I have not been around for awhile, health problems....... Hope to catch up on the Round Up on Wednesday night. 73's Capt Barry We'll keep an ear out for you.......
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Post by whitetail on Dec 6, 2016 10:47:17 GMT -5
Things have been busy here lately with the Pennsylvania satewide hunting season here so I been hitting that hard. Got some snow on the ground and the tower and antenna setup has been holding up with 50+ mph winds we had last week for 2 day. Everytime I turn the radio on I check the swr's and the readings I got are holding the same as when I put the station up and tested, so nothing is shifting as for swr's, thats a good thing. There are not any really local cbers around here anymore. I do talk to a group 40 miles away direct shot and a buddy 17 miles away. Thats about it, when the skip is rolling I can get out really good.
Thanks captbarry. I may try the penetrator out as i did hear from others that they are good antennas.
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Post by whitetail on Dec 9, 2016 13:05:07 GMT -5
check this out! Got alot of contacts in the past few days, with great reports. This setup is great for skywave DX. Iam not changing nothing at this point. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AzRcr0PImE
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Dec 9, 2016 18:08:51 GMT -5
check this out! Got alot of contacts in the past few days, with great reports. This setup is great for skywave DX. Iam not changing nothing at this point. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AzRcr0PImESkywave DX is fairly easy to work. You don't need fantastic height, just an unobstructed path to the sky. The type of antenna will make a difference. I'm impressed with Night Ranger's Lazy H wire configuration. That seems to be the right angle of radiation to work us in PA, when the sporatic-E skip is running his way. But the thing is, there is no such thing as a "one-size-fits-all" best antenna for all purposes, as each type of skip will be a bit different. That's why HF ham DX chasers usually have several different types of antennas. Sometimes a vertical works best. Other times, a horizontal dipole or beam works best. Sometimes a circular polarized quad beam does the trick. Of course, when there are no conditions, no antenna is going to work, and then you'll need the best antenna for working the locals.
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Post by 238 on Dec 15, 2016 21:17:05 GMT -5
My favorite ant is the Maco V-5000. Mine is on top of a 93 ft. tower. 238
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Post by whitetail on Mar 21, 2017 6:57:29 GMT -5
quick information needed, for grounding my tower what gauge copper wire should be used? Should it be braded or solid wire? Also should it be the same thickness for connecting all the ground rods together underground? Sorry if this was posted before I skimed through the pages but didnt see it. Thanks for the help!!
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Mar 21, 2017 8:12:21 GMT -5
quick information needed, for grounding my tower what gauge copper wire should be used? Should it be braded or solid wire? Also should it be the same thickness for connecting all the ground rods together underground? Sorry if this was posted before I skimed through the pages but didnt see it. Thanks for the help!! For lightning protection, use as thick a cable as you can manage. We took a lightning strike on our repeater tower and we had a flat piece of braided copper strapping that the current from the lightning fused together into a solid bar. It's not a job for your typical 8 gauge wire. For RF grounding to multiple ground rods and a counterpoise system, the gauge of the wire can be much smaller. Just make sure that the designated lightning ground has enough "beef" to it to carry the massive current spike.
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Post by whitetail on Mar 21, 2017 9:05:57 GMT -5
quick information needed, for grounding my tower what gauge copper wire should be used? Should it be braded or solid wire? Also should it be the same thickness for connecting all the ground rods together underground? Sorry if this was posted before I skimed through the pages but didnt see it. Thanks for the help!! For lightning protection, use as thick a cable as you can manage. We took a lightning strike on our repeater tower and we had a flat piece of braided copper strapping that the current from the lightning fused together into a solid bar. It's not a job for your typical 8 gauge wire. For RF grounding to multiple ground rods and a counterpoise system, the gauge of the wire can be much smaller. Just make sure that the designated lightning ground has enough "beef" to it to carry the massive current spike. WOW! so by the sounds of it I would want to use Solid wire? I would rather be overkill then not enough here.
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Mar 21, 2017 10:55:59 GMT -5
For lightning protection, use as thick a cable as you can manage. We took a lightning strike on our repeater tower and we had a flat piece of braided copper strapping that the current from the lightning fused together into a solid bar. It's not a job for your typical 8 gauge wire. For RF grounding to multiple ground rods and a counterpoise system, the gauge of the wire can be much smaller. Just make sure that the designated lightning ground has enough "beef" to it to carry the massive current spike. WOW! so by the sounds of it I would want to use Solid wire? I would rather be overkill then not enough here. Good rule to follow.
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Post by bill on Mar 22, 2017 6:14:39 GMT -5
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Post by whitetail on May 11, 2017 10:46:32 GMT -5
hey gang, getting around to finially grounding my tower, As said previously copper strap is probably the best, because strap has more surface area for the currents to pass through, then a solid copper wire. went to a commercial electrical store for the items. They did not have flat copper, so I asked for # 2 tinned solid copper wire, did not have that either, At this point he asked what I was going to do with these things. I told him, and he suggested me using #2 stranded copper wire. Why stranded I asked, he said, the area in which we are in in the winter time the frost heaves the ground so much in this area, there so if it were to stretch and break 1 or a few strands there will be connection with the others that are still in contact. (Connections and wire should be checked yearly) At this point I said I will get back to him when I have more information, therefore walked out with nothing. I stumbled on to a ham site and they are all in favor of the tinned # 2 copper wire , Tinned copper wire is copper wire coated with a thin, electroplated layer of tin. Tin is an element that resists water and oxygen so it is not subject to corrosion. Copper wire is coated with tin in order to keep its conductive characteristics while becoming much more resistant to corrosion by protecting it from the elements. It also provides much more strength and durability to the wire. Tinned copper wire can last up to 10 times longer than untinned wire. At this point Iam confused, He wants to sell me stranded, do I buy it? I just want the job to be done and me knowing that it is done the right way and it is going to be safe. Thanks guys. I could purchase from here www.gacopper.com/just like buying a car, keep looking at more options then you dont know what to get!
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