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Best CB Radio DX Antenna?
- Thread starter CB RADIO FREQ
- Start date
Houston, Texas, eh? You must not get a lot of snow down there. That Enforcer would be useless up north in the winter. Snow packing the coil would detune that thing and make it useless. Even my Hygain Penetrator changes SWR with snow. Even a hard rain changes it too. Those Macos are OK (but I still love my Hygain).
if you do more DXing on SSB then you might want to use a Imax 2000 or a A99 simply because they are very broad banded to give gret SWR's accross a wide range of freq's. you can take 30 watts up into the freebands above channel 40 on ssb and talk to the world on ssb or do a little am dxing below channel one. another super sleeper antenna that will get you world wide DX if you want a beam and a small foot print for the antenna the Maco Vquad is a full wave delta loop antenna. and with that antenna you can just tune it in the freq. range you want to most of your dx in they are great for a beam but they don't have the same band width as the Imax 2000 or A99. but if you just stay with in the regular 40 channels any of the 5/8'th wave antennas will work well when the conditions are right DX is more about propagation i've talked to SO. Africa from the mobile with a trunk mounted sirio 5000 and a rci 2970 on SSB. but for the best long haul DX check out SSB if you already haven't
DXman
Yes, that's 3100 degrees F. Nine yrs of hard work.
If you were to look around on the net for some of the big stations coming out of Europe, Asia & etc, you would see that they are running beams. As far as polarity - horizontal is where it's at. Lots of horizontal beams are also used by Ham's.
Some will say Vertical will work just as good, but I don't believe it. The guys in my area with vertical beams and vertical sticks, can not hear half of the stations that I hear with my horizontal beam.
Just pick any horizontal ant. and you should do pretty good.
it's all in the stars.....or really the sun. & sometimes in the clouds in between
oh well. guess i'll repeat myself. IT'S ALL IN THE STARS.....OR REALLY THE SUN. & SOMETIMES IN THE CLOUDS IN BETWEEN
there is no ONE antenna best for ANYTHING. the question was 'i was just wondering if there was a specific type of antenna that works the best for dx'. the answer is, actually, NO. sure, if room & money allows, 8 or 10 elements on an optimized boom in the range of 50 or 60 feet or so will give you pinpoint accuracy & loads of gain. does it guarantee the BEST antenna for dx? absolutely not. will you get out? MOST likely. every time? NOPE. i'm sure EVERYBODY at least once in their life has 'made the contact' using a less then optimal antenna and minimal power, whereas the local big gun on his beam & kilowatt was left standing by himself. it happens. it's all about being in the right place at the right time. neither my 10m antenna (27 year old maco v5/8 never retuned from 11m) nor my 6m array (2 x ku4ab squalo's at 26') is anything to write home about, but i've been in the midst of some impressive openings where a friend about 8 miles NW of me has a 5 element 10m yagi on a LONG boom, as well as the 54' 6m M2 yagi. oh yea does he make contacts! most of the time i am either right in front of or right behind him. 59 or 51 or 11, if the station i called repeats my call back to me, i made it. if they hear my name, my grid, & his 59, i made it. i'd love to have my friends beams. but i can get out just fine with mine. i've been on the other end, where my horizontal yagi was NOT heard, and another locals vertical (yagi or omni) was.
you can compare performance of antennas point to point, with no aided propagation factors included. once you change the playing field to include any type of aided propagation, all bets are off.
so to better answer the original question, what are his limits, dollar-wise & antenna-wise? then he can get a little better answer....with caveats.
I'll ditto 'davegrantsr', there is no such thing as a single, all-the-time, best DX antenna. There can be a number of antennas that are 'best' at some -particular- time and state of propagation. But! Propagation changes all the time and so does that 'best' 'DX antenna'. That's about as normal as it gets. May not be what you are told by someone, but it's still a fact.
- 'Doc
- 'Doc
I like me having at least one antenna of each polarity. I have a dual polarity 5 element maco and at different times one will work alot better than the other. Lately overall vertical has been working better than horz into europe for me. Also for local its nice to have both. Talking to locals on vertical groundplanes and mobiles and if someone throws a dead key and the guy your talking to has flat side also you can make that carrier thrower magicly disappear.
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To be honest, fiberglass antenas doesnt work in dry places.
Where I live some people has been problems with them beucase the dry weater finally dry the antena too and can break it.
I preffer metalllic, same as President Black Pirate o the Mantova Turbo.
It is my simple opinion. 73's
Where I live some people has been problems with them beucase the dry weater finally dry the antena too and can break it.
I preffer metalllic, same as President Black Pirate o the Mantova Turbo.
It is my simple opinion. 73's
A few comments... there is no really "best" antenna for DX work.. it all depends... if the person you are trying to reach is using horizontal polarization, and you're vertical, you will have cross polarization losses, and vice versa.
Next, the A99 and Imax aren't exactly known for being great antennas, they have issues with common mode currents, and unless you get them up in the air quite a bit, have high ground losses due to the fact they they are a "no ground plane" design.
However, that doesn't mean that you won't have decent results with them...once again it all depends on what you are trying to do.
For example, let's say you have an A99 and a Maco V5/8 groundplane both at the same height.
You have the same feedline fed to both and for all intensive purposes they are identical setups connected through an A/B switch to the radio.
You are talking to a station 650 miles away and you switch back and forth and notice the A99 works BETTER than the V5/8 even though the V5/8 is a true ground plane antenna and is a 5/8 wave vs a 1/2 wave design.
Well, it does make sense because the A99 has a higher take off angle which is normally undesired property, which means it has less energy out toward the horizon and more up toward the sky that gets wasted. But for this relatively short "dx" contact, the A99 is ideal.
Now, same frequency, same situation, and a station from 2500mi away tells you that the V 5/8 performs better. Once again, makes sense, a lower radiation angle.
A word of advice is try to avoid the people who tell you one antenna is better than another due to the fact that they talked to "so and so" and make "x amount of contacts" to where ever on it. These results are shaky at best, mentally biased, and remember even a piece of wire strung up between trees with the right conditions can permit DX contacts.
If I had to have ONE vertical antenna it would be either the I-10K or the V 5/8 or some copy of it. I would avoid the A99, Imax 2000, or the Sigma 4 copies.
My recommendations are based on technical facts and efficiency and also radiation patterns.
Next, the A99 and Imax aren't exactly known for being great antennas, they have issues with common mode currents, and unless you get them up in the air quite a bit, have high ground losses due to the fact they they are a "no ground plane" design.
However, that doesn't mean that you won't have decent results with them...once again it all depends on what you are trying to do.
For example, let's say you have an A99 and a Maco V5/8 groundplane both at the same height.
You have the same feedline fed to both and for all intensive purposes they are identical setups connected through an A/B switch to the radio.
You are talking to a station 650 miles away and you switch back and forth and notice the A99 works BETTER than the V5/8 even though the V5/8 is a true ground plane antenna and is a 5/8 wave vs a 1/2 wave design.
Well, it does make sense because the A99 has a higher take off angle which is normally undesired property, which means it has less energy out toward the horizon and more up toward the sky that gets wasted. But for this relatively short "dx" contact, the A99 is ideal.
Now, same frequency, same situation, and a station from 2500mi away tells you that the V 5/8 performs better. Once again, makes sense, a lower radiation angle.
A word of advice is try to avoid the people who tell you one antenna is better than another due to the fact that they talked to "so and so" and make "x amount of contacts" to where ever on it. These results are shaky at best, mentally biased, and remember even a piece of wire strung up between trees with the right conditions can permit DX contacts.
If I had to have ONE vertical antenna it would be either the I-10K or the V 5/8 or some copy of it. I would avoid the A99, Imax 2000, or the Sigma 4 copies.
My recommendations are based on technical facts and efficiency and also radiation patterns.
Not quite. With skywave (skip), you have the phenomenon of "Faraday Rotation" where the action of traveling up to and bouncing off the ionosphere causes the signal to rotate or twist at in an unpredictable and unknown way. Thus, the receive signal can be any polarity, vertical or horizontal. This action partially accounts for the differing signal levels at the receiving station (the other reason is propagation and varying reflectivity of the ionosphere). This is why you can switch from vertical to horizontal during a QSO and see varying differences from one to the other.
The differences between horizontal to vertical (about 20dB difference) can best be seen over ground wave.
All your other points are quite correct. The Imax and the A99 I will leave for another thread, as they deserve their own thread.