army big stick

[chris.s]

here is a good one,I run a v5/8 for an omni,my neighbor always ran an a99,my Maco is 44ft to the base his a99 is 34 ft to the base,the maco has always talked all over his a99 to several bases 50-60 miles away on ssb always 1-2 s-unit stronger,we put up the army stick which I believe is called an ABS 2100 and it talks right over the Maco no problem,he is running a ts 690 ,and I am running a ts 570s both running around a hundred watts,the Maco was built by the specs found on this forum and the match is perfect it was checked with 2 analyzers,the big stick has a match around 1.3-1.5,we have even swapped radios with the same results,the stick out talking the Maco,last night on 38lsb we were talking with the usuals and a station came in that was 100 plus miles away that heard the big stick but could not hear the Maco enough to make out what I was saying,I replaced an Imax with the Maco last fall and have been very pleased,it heard and out did the Imax no problem,maybe it is time to find an Army stick.

chris.s

 

[Marconi]

The difference in you two guy's location in town and different ground clutter between the station a 100 miles away can cause signals to be different, even if you both are exactally the same distance from the guy 100 miles away. This could also be true even if you guys are very close neighbors.

I cannot explain why the Big stick should be showing that much advantage over the Maco. They are both 5/8 wave type antennas I believe. I have never seen inside of the BS, but I believe it to be an off center fed (OCF) antenna. This is a little different from you Maco feeder, but I do not see that to make the big difference that you note.

Maybe it's just pay back time for talking all over your buddy when he has his A99 up.

 

[chris.s]

yes we are very close,we can see each others house,another thing noticed when he had the 99 up and ran his al-811h I could get his splatter 9-10 channels either side of the one he was talking on,it has cut down to 1-2 now at the most which is good for line of sight distance,he also told me that his tvi issue has stopped when he runs the amp now other than his computer speakers,it was very bad before the big stick,the a99 did have a ground plane kit on it also,it was the alum.Maco kit called a boomer kit just like the v5/8s,when he put the ground plane kit on a year ago he noticed no difference on transmit or recieve,but the change in the splatter and his major drop in tvi is interesting don't you think,he also said that his swr stays at 1.2-1.3 running the amp and the 99 used to jump from a 1.1 to around 1.4,I'm not an expert on antennas by any means,it just appears to me that the Army stick is a very good antenna,also another comment on the cross channel thing,without his amp I could get cross channel 1-3 channels when he ran the 99 and I was on the Maco,now without the amp there is nothing when on my Maco,and yes I have been hearing from him about getting over my Maco for a couple of hours last night,but my 8 element quad at 60 ft with my al80b cures that,I know thats not fair,but it's fun.


take care
Chris.s

 

[Marconi]

I did not know about the amps. It is probably just a difference in power. Also his antenna is factory tuned and you had to tune yours youself. If your antenna is not tuned perfectly then he will beat you every time, because with the amp crowd SWR is everything. If I was you I would be up on that tower retuning my Maco.

 

[Unit 194]

I have personally owned two Shakespeare ABS-1600 Base Antennas and in my opinion they were the "worst" performing 5/8 wave base antennas I have ever owned.

I would much rather prefer to use the Maco, Imax 2000, or the A99 base antennas instead of the Shakespeare ABS-1600.

 

[KingCobra_CDX882]

Unit 194 is right..

I keep as back up antennas the A-99 (so so )
as well as Shakespeare ABS-1600 Base Antenna (less then so so)

If you really want a good antenna to be impressed with

I use jay's Interceptor I-10K www.a1antennas.com
(countless discussions on this antenna throughout this forum)

Another good antenna is Mr Coily .64
Another good antenna is Wolf's .64

if it is not a I-10K or a Mr Coily or Wolf .64
then you likely will do much better in both receive and transmitting
doing much better both with local as well as DX Skip

these 3 antennas also will greatly out last the fiberglass antennas and survive very harsh weather

 

[me 99]

I have had all 3 antennas, I-max, Antron, and the Army Big Stick.. I can say that after runing them all, the I-max performed the best.. What I will say for the Big Stick is, the power rating numbers are more accurate than the other 2.. Running the same amount of power thru each, the Antron and I-max both looked like exploded cigars but the Big Stick is still working

 

[KingCobra_CDX882]

of those 3

A-99
Imax-2000
ABS-1600

Imax is best

when i replaced my A99
i had to go up and not sideways

is why i got jay's I-10K

no regrets

is larger,heavier and harder to mount for some peoples likes

but that is life

 

[chris.s]

no doubt Jay makes a good antenna,but for the couple of people that I talk to local in my area 300+ bucks for one shipped to NY is not for me,I only talk ssb and a couple of the guys I mainly talk to are 70-80 miles away as the crow flies so 99% of the time I am using the beam,If there was more local traffic in my area I would think about one of Jays antennas,Coily and Eddie are not building any antennas right now,as far as Dxing goes the Maco does fine but so did my Imax and my neighbors a99,I have an end-fed PAR wire I take camping that talks skip great also,if conditions are in any antenna will talk skip,back in the mid 70s I used to run an Archer 1/2 ground plane and a cobra 135 base and we used to talk skip on 16,17,18,lsb all the time,the big antenna then was a Bigstick with a Francis whip instead of the original,did it really work any better who knows,like I mentioned earlier from reading all of the posts about Jays antenna it seems to be the way to go for an omni,I just found it interesting the improvments my freind got by going to the Army stick over his a99,tvi issues running his amp are gone,better signal reports from distant stations,also now he can talk to his wife all the way to her workplace which he never could do before,like said kinda of interesting.

take care
chris.s

 

[KingCobra_CDX882]

yes i found that surprising as well

regarding the 70 miles and so you use the beam
i talk 70 miles easily (i also only use SSB)
where i talk from nj out to the tip of long island
(about 90 to 110 miles where the crow flys)

 

[chris.s]

King Cobra,did you ever talk to Rob unit 820 39lsb,this was 2 summers ago,he had a flat 8 element maco and a 950sdx kenwood I cant remember what he was running for an amp,he was not to far from Piscataway,on sunday mornings he would come in when I was talking to some guys in Albany,we used to talk back and forth no problem on flatside,I don't hear him anymore, that is a pretty good trip for groundwave I'm up by the 1000 island area in NY,I never did figure out how far that was.



take care

chris.s

 

[KingCobra_CDX882]

more then likly
i have spoken to most on 37 to 40 lsb throughout ny and nj
much of Pa as well..

will have to give you a try when i get my voice back