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A question about antennas
- Thread starter Raccoon
- Start date
Marconi said:007, no I have never owned a Penetrator.
Here is a signal report I took when I compared the SD and the I-10K and a few others in 2006. This was all local contacts that range from 5-60 miles.
Yes I agree that the SD is more of a dipole than a GP and that it is a bit off center fed. Notice the reports for the Marconi which is my homemade version of the SD. It has a 102" radiator with three 72" horizontal and three 1/4 wave elements at 45 degrees using a GPK hub from an A99. Picture shows three down radials installed. The 72" elements were installed horizontal in the side of the hub where you see one hole.
Shot at 2006-06-17
Shot at 2006-05-04
Very interesting signal reports............
CDX-007 said:
007, I wouldn't put too much stock in the specifics of my
results here.
Russell - North says he is in Conroe and I'm
8 miles NW of downtown Houston. He also says he uses
a MR beam at 100' high and the center of Conroe is
about 50' miles from me. In fact all the stations noted
with a town are from 30-70 miles from me.
Elevation in this area is pretty flat for the most part,
but we have very high structures all around and that
really can make a difference in signals from different
stations, regardless of land miles. Of course seasonal
conditions and TX power are also factors that must be
consider.
I compare two antennas at a time here so I can get
moment to moment signal reports from my neighbors.
It is not perfect, but my contention is that doing checks
this way is better than comparing the antenna today
to the one I had up last week or 10 years ago. What
I find most amazing has been more to a lack of
differences between the antennas I test, moment
to moment.
It would be interesting to be able to get my TX signal
results to different buds around, but in this day and
time it is just not practical to be checking signal reports
on the air. The only TX reports I received in this report
were at the bottom. Justin in Caldwell could not read
my Starduster when compared to my I-10K, but he said
that he had a local noise level problem and Caldwell is a
little over 100 miles from me.
lords
Active Member
Marconi said:
Hey Marconi,
- Grab another cup o'coffee, your about to enter the no-brevity zone... :roll:
OK that's bizarre the performance of the SD and I-10K are so similar in your tests, except for the guy who heard the I-10K and couldn't hear the SD.
If I would've received such similar results I would've either changed coax to the Penetrator, sold it and replaced it with another, or taken it completely apart in an attempt to discern what went wrong!
The results here from an SD AstroPlane, Big Stick and Ringo were all so similar and so far below the Penetrator and Sigma5/8 I never kept any as I considered them truly inferior and sold each and every one asap after testing to reassure myself the Penertrator was supreme.
I kept the Ringo for camping after I tired of removing the Penetrator from the 5 section mast everytime I went camping.
I'll have to scan a pic from 1975 with Mom & Dad and the Penetrator erected next to the Motorhome at Seacliff Beach, Ca. My 10-speed is also in the pic. Good times...
I tried a Sigma5/8 which I sold after testing against the Penetrator and which eventually made it's way back to me from my friend Donn, and found it to be neck & neck in performance, even possibly a quarter needle's width better on RX and a quarter needle's width worse on TX (tit for tat) but basically identical and yet preferred the Penetrator due to the heavier-duty costruction, especially of the radials.
At the time I thought it a cheap way out to use 12guage solid stock for the last 30" or so due to the ease of bending if a large bird flew into it at night or even tried to perch there.
I always tested with the same mast, (about 55' to the hub) coax and radio and as close together time-wise as possible. And I used a few consistent contacts with the best meters and greatest distances I could find.
I tried to stay away from people with newer soldistate rigs as the good old tuber rigs seemed to have the best meters, not the type which made almost everyone sit on S-9. I usually picked another Johnson Messenger 223, 124, or a Golden Eagle which had an awesome meter, once it stopped swinging back & forth like a pendulum... on those I'd have to hold the dead key for a good 6-8 seconds.
Everyone loved it when I went to test another antenna, I was sort of the local antenna test center. I'd even get requests!
Before I forget, there was another antenna which performed equal to the Penetrator & Sigma5/8, the Taylor Grandslammer. It was a coil fed .64 and like the R/S .64 (for which I make a kit to mod it into a real Penetrator) was an XLNT performer... until the coil fried from power!
Except for the coil, that antenna was the best of the best as it was all 6061-T6 aluminum and was a friggin fishing pole in the wind but came right back to straight once the wind stopped.
I have a fun story (I'll bore everyone with someday) about snapping a guy wire in a storm and the neighbor next door pounding on our front door at 1:30 am to tell us my antenna was keeping him awake as it kept slapping his roof!
6061-T6 is amazing schtuff.
Hey, many thanks for sharing your test results!
73
KingCobra_CDX882 said:
Well KingC, in the spring of 2003, I received a 50_11m, no-ground plane,
1/2 wave antenna from Wolf Radio. I put the ½ wave up as high as I could
and started comparing it locally with my I-10K. I was amazed that I would
more than often see a bit better signal when switching to the 1/2 wave.
I put up my Starduster back up and compared it as well. It did not fair as well
with the feed points at the same height. I raised it up to 41’ compared to the I-10K
at 35’ to the feed point. Raising 6’ higher improved the SD'r by an S unit, but it
still failed to equal or match the I-10K by maybe an S unit. I just pushed its
advantage to try see if I could equalize the difference in size. Even though I saw
improved parity I never raised the SD up fully to the tip height of the I-10K
where it may have bested my old bigUn’.
I dug out an old AstroPlane and put it up. Sometime later I bought a .64 Wolf
and compared it also. My big old 5/8 wavelength I-10K just wasn’t always making
the better signals that I was expecting---based on all the claims I was hearing
about from other users. This is when I started comparing and recording RX signals
using every antenna I had, side by side using a switch box. That is my experience,
some of which you see from the chart I posted earlier.
King you ask if I think the A99 is as good as the I-10k. The answer is no, but it is not
as bad as many people complain it is either. The A99 was so worry free and easy to
install, that the choice was easy for me as I grew older. The A99 is my choice for
regular use all around. I would rather have my Starduster or my AstroPlane up about
50’-60’ like I did in the old days. Both are much quieter when the noise level is low
and they both talk good up high. Problem is they are both a bother to install, but
the secret to getting a ¼ wave or a ½ wave to really talk is getting up over obstructions.
Booty Monster you are reading the chart just fine and you are right. I wish that I had
played with my old AstroPlane more, but when I got it up, it was right before hurricane
season here on the Gulf Coast and due to a coming storm, I took every thing down
a couple of years ago. Right now I have my .64 and the A99 up and working. Signals
are about the same, but for some reason the .64 shows a very strong signal from
local horizontal beam signals. I most often see little to no difference in DX however.
That is still a puzzle to me.
Marconi said:
When I read that about a switch box I remembered your pictures and the Dain Bramage kicked into high gear as I realized that you were testing them side by side instead of same location, mast, height, coax, etc...
I know it's possibly splitting hairs, but I wonder how well the coax is 'tuned' into the I-10K and it would be great to know if the stations which were stronger just happened to be 1/4 wave off from the two antennas, possibly putting the I-10K into the null whereas the 'other' may have been at a peak of the wave.
I've seen this happen from the mobile on 10m, 11m, 6m, 2m & 440. And when I moved the Ringo from the rear right of the house to the rear left all of a sudden Donn was now 1 S-unit stronger and Mike was 2 S-units weaker, and I only moved the Ringo about 23' but at a diagonal that was closer to 1/4 wave to each of them.
It would be really cool if you could run fresh tests with only 3-4 fixed stations at varying distances and with quality S-meters to find the results of using the exact same mast height & location, coax, etc..., and only between the SD and I-10K.