Base Best antenna of my life

[xm49north7]

Had an interesting weekend. I have been building antenna now for a bit , and have owned a few, but lately been running full wave vertical loops. I was having trouble picking up a few of my locals, and I was determined to find a way to fix this. I have had two full wave loops on the roof for about a month. On the weekend I got the idea to join two of them together,into a 2 element co-phased array, these are side by side facing out, think hands in front of your face, so 2 loops up flat side facing out, joined with a T , both loops have exactly the same amount of coax(50 feet) each to a T in the shack, then about 3 feet to the radio. This has just been amazing, longest contacts ever. I have had, 5/8 waves, j-poles, 2 elm quads, dipoles, deltas,and a moxon, this set up has just blown them all, way out of the water. I run stock 4 watts, so this has been a breakthrough for me, getting out 40 km (25 MILES) and farther in rough terrain, so think I am getting all that can be gotten out of a cb radio. I hear bits out almost 60 miles, non skip. Just thought I would share this good fortune. I have been bangin antenna design hard for about a year. This feels like, I finally found the antenna I was seeking. Skip gone here now till spring, will need this for the long cold winter. I am looking forward to using this new set-up, anybody have any ideas on tweaking it, I am all ears. I don't want to stop building and tweaking, so give me your ideas on where to take this next.

 

[binrat]

No pictures, never happened... hahaha
Playing with antennas for some is endless enjoyment. Keep having fun.

 

[Shadetree Mechanic]

That's awesome! Maybe you can tune it in with the Quantum Phaser.

http://dxtools.com/Phaser.htm

 

[Jay Mojave]

Hello North7: Yeah that sounds great, what's the VSWR, and how high are they mounted??? Yeah photos please.

Jay in the Great Mojave desert

 

[Marconi]

xm49north47, can you give us a good description or picture showing how you mounted these antennas side by side?

 

[xm49north7]

I will try and get a photo tomorrow, they are about 36 feet to the feedpoint, swr is is flat at about 1.3 right acrooss all 40, the bearcats, built in swr has them at 1 to 1, right across. These are 2 rectangle vertical loops each side middle fed , for vertical polarization, both facing out, think lift you hands up in front of you face , about 1/2 wave length spacing between the loops, each fed to a t with 50 feet of coax. so phased , no lag between them. Each loop aprox, 6 feet wide by 12 feet tall, one was opened up to about 7 feet in the middle to tune , as it is side hung off my tower , which has some effect on tuning. I have great luck tuning full wave loops, adjust length until you get equal swr all across the channels, if it is over 1.5 , spread the middle of the loop until it drops under 1.5,

 

[xm49north7]

Here is a diagram of the set up

 

[Rick330man]

Definitely not your typical CB antenna array.

 

[xm49north7]

I have built just about everything I can think of, and was not happy, I have a 2 element quad, but it is at a lower height of 30 feet to the top, but it was not great at this height. I had the 2 loops on the roof, and both were fed with 50 feet of coax, and I stumbled across some array info on the web, that said a phased array was 2 equal feed lines to a t, so I had a tv splitter, joined them up, and got a long contact on my first call out, in fact the longest local ever, on any of these antennas. This just works for me, it is literally double the power of the loops on there own. I will be sticking with this. I am sold. Very excited how this worked out. This would work with any 2 antennas of similar design.

 

[loosecannon]

are these vertical loops directional at all?

i am very intrigued and will start the google process, but i thought i'd ask here first.
LC

 

[xm49north7]

are these vertical loops directional at all?

i am very intrigued and will start the google process, but i thought i'd ask here first.
LC

They put out an oval shape, like most loops not quite omni but not a null off the side, like the ends of a dipole, I will attach a picture of what they are said to be , and I would agree with this, I get out better I feel off the front and back. So almost round, some show them as kind of peanut shaped, some as an oval, and some close to round, but not a perfect omni. I do get out good off the edge of the loops. I am not sure how things are now that I have them phased, I am sure hearing really well from all directions. I have not talked off the edge yet. I am now hearing people I never have heard before. Really quite amazing. I pick up guys out 60 miles who run a bit of power, I can't talk to them on y 4 watts, longest contact so far local has been 25 miles on hilly wooded country. and conversation was clear. Working fine on skip, talked to "500 Nova Scotia" tonight from here in east Ontario.

 

[xm49north7]

That's awesome! Maybe you can tune it in with the Quantum Phaser.

http://dxtools.com/Phaser.htm

Oh now you have me thinking I have read about this, it is very surprising the ammount of info on arrays, it seems to be a hot research topic, most of it a dry long read, but supper interesting. There is a lot of potential for steered arrays for sure.

 

[xm49north7]

Some great info on phasing here, this is what I read that got me onto this. https://www.cbradiomemories.com/co-phased-antennas.htm

It would appear from this link, I should now have a much more directional pattern that is narrow. Time will tell I guess with the 3b gain it has to come from some place, I was hoping it was coming from the 2 combined, so that my 2 antenna circles were kind of stacked and my width was about the same as before. I guess this is still a possibility, but regardless, it will have a large oval shape for sure.

 

[xm49north7]

Should look like this.Picture.

 

[xm49north7]

Here is one from another source for 1/2 wave spacing