7 ft fire stick wire

[Global Mobile 357]

How long is the wire in the 7ft Fire stick?
It's a 1/4 wave so around 108 inches?
If this is true then my 2 inch mount would make it 110? If I knew the exact length of the wire should I trim it to 106 inches?

 

[543_Dallas]

There is a lot more than a 1/4 wave of wire in there. Making a loaded antenna isn't as simple as measuring out a 1/4 wave piece of wire and wrapping it around a fiberglass rod. I wish I knew enough to calculate the exact length in your antenna. Length of the antenna, diameter of the antenna, the diameter if the wire and how it's wrapped come into play.

I would install the antenna however you need to and then check the swr. If it's higher on ch 40 than ch 1 then pull out a bit if wire and cut it. If the swr is higher on 1 than 40 it's already too short. Keep doing this carefully until swr is equal on 1 and 40.

 

[Global Mobile 357]

Thanks for the reply.

The is swr for the fire stick is good.
Channel 1 1:1
Channel 40 flat.

102 w/spring
Channel 1 1.8
Channel 40 1.6

Wilson 5000 base load
Channel 1 1:2
Channel 40 1:1

I guess I need to do more field test
And less drilling holes.

There is a lot more than a 1/4 wave of wire in there. Making a loaded antenna isn't as simple as measuring out a 1/4 wave piece of wire and wrapping it around a fiberglass rod. I wish I knew enough to calculate the exact length in your antenna. Length of the antenna, diameter of the antenna, the diameter if the wire and how it's wrapped come into play.

I would install the antenna however you need to and then check the swr. If it's higher on ch 40 than ch 1 then pull out a bit if wire and cut it. If the swr is higher on 1 than 40 it's already too short. Keep doing this carefully until swr is equal on 1 and 40.

There is a lot more than a 1/4 wave of wire in there. Making a loaded antenna isn't as simple as measuring out a 1/4 wave piece of wire and wrapping it around a fiberglass rod. I wish I knew enough to calculate the exact length in your antenna. Length of the antenna, diameter of the antenna, the diameter if the wire and how it's wrapped come into play.

I would install the antenna however you need to and then check the swr. If it's higher on ch 40 than ch 1 then pull out a bit if wire and cut it. If the swr is higher on 1 than 40 it's already too short. Keep doing this carefully until swr is equal on 1 and 40.

 

[Global Mobile 357]

Another question why would each one of these antennas show a different power output on my meter ?

Wilson 5000 5w
Firestick 15w
102whip 9w

Could the base load design of the Wilson be believe that Lossy?

Thanks for the reply.

The is swr for the fire stick is good.
Channel 1 1:1
Channel 40 flat.

102 w/spring
Channel 1 1.8
Channel 40 1.6

Wilson 5000 base load
Channel 1 1:2
Channel 40 1:1

I guess I need to do more field test
And less drilling holes.

Another quick question why would each one of these antennas show a different output on the meter

 

[543_Dallas]

A lower impedence load will show a higher power reading than a higher one.

 

[The DB]

Another question why would each one of these antennas show a different power output on my meter ?

Wilson 5000 5w
Firestick 15w
102whip 9w

Could the base load design of the Wilson be believe that Lossy?


Another quick question why would each one of these antennas show a different output on the meter

Essentially, what is happening is if you don't have a perfect SWR match at the antenna, some of the power is reflected at the antenna back up the feed line towards the radio. At the radio the power actually bounces back towards the antenna again. An in-line power meter picks up on this extra power present in the feed line and reports higher readings. The worse the SWR the higher said readings can be. In general, you want to test your power while transmitting into a dummy load to get an accurate reading.

There are CB shops that will use this trick to claim they tuned your radio to get a higher power output than the radio is actually transmitting.


The DB

 

[rabbiporkchop]

This antenna had 9.5 feet of wire in the coil alone.

Adding the cap hat allowed me to remove 3 feet of wire from the coil. Length of coil wire when unwrapped, plus all the other parts, will always be greater than 108 inches.

 

[Onelasttime]

Do not put your faith in SWR. An antenna with a low SWR does not mean it is radiating better than another design that might be higher.

I have never had a Fire Stick and I have owned a few since 1990 including a a lot of 5 foot II's and 7 foot origianals that has outperformed any other brand of antenna. Now that said I have used mostly 102" whips, Firsticks, Wilson 5000, K40, Wilson Silver Load, Solarconn Quad Rod and an early 1991-ish open external capacitor design. It was a toss up between the 102" whip and the open air external capacitor type in terms of band width and actual field tests from fixed location to fixed base stations and fixed mobiles. In fact the K40 base loaded antenna outperformed the 7 foot and 5 foot firesticks.

All of the really hard empirical testing I have seen pretty much agree's with my observations with regard to the 102" and the Monkey Made's of the radio world having the best performance under laboratory conditions and real world field testing.

I went from Firesticks to K40 and saw a huge improvement in receive and transmit. Then when I went from a car to a SUV I went to a 102" whip with about 6"-8" inches of aluminum stand off bracket to get the whip away from the vehicle a bit. In each case the improvement was huge it could be seen and heard at both ends. When ever I hear someone complaining that CB does not talk far enough they always have some short fiber glass antenna, a ruber duck window mount, cellular through glass mount or some really gimp magnet mount that looks like a coat hanger with a black wire wound resister mounted to a magnet about the size of a Hockey puck mounted in a poor location. I know it is not a resistor by the way but that is what it reminds me of. It reminds me of a black wire wound resistor!

If you care about what people think of you stay far away from a 102" whip or anything like a Monkey Made or Viper etc....They second you put one of those on your car or a screw driver antenna it will scream "red neck" to anyone not in the community/hobby. When I see a ton of VHF/UHF antenna's on a car my first thought is "cop slow down" than as I get closer I realize it is someone with a N+1 addiction in the 2- way hobby!

 

[rabbiporkchop]

Roof mount on car vs hanging off the side of a tractor trailer should be factored into the equation as well.