Halcon version of Astroplane

[freezy]

I picked up a supposedly 5/8 wave version of the Astroplane made in Italy by Halcon. The instructions are for setting it up for 10M. I have little interest in that. The last pipe is supposed to be 34.5". There is plenty of pipe to extend another 18" beyond 34.5".

Anyway...to rough set swr can I just lean a mast against the eave of the house?

 

[Marconi]

I picked up a supposedly 5/8 wave version of the Astroplane made in Italy by Halcon. The instructions are for setting it up for 10M. I have little interest in that. The last pipe is supposed to be 34.5". There is plenty of pipe to extend another 18" beyond 34.5".

Anyway...to rough set swr can I just lean a mast against the eave of the house?

Freezy in my experience with my Astroplane antenna, it does not like anything too close to the bottom hoop. Even if you put the antenna on a 20' foot mast you still have about 7'-8' feet hanging down, and that would put the hoop close to the typical single story house. Try it, and if the match doesn't look good then move the antenna out into the clear, just to make sure.

I find the antenna works great when mounted as high as I can get it, about 50' feet to the mount.

 

[freezy]

Halcon version of _? 3 horizontal Radial Groundplane

ok maybe this isnt an Astroplane

"CTE CB Base Antenna 5/8 Wave 3.5 Db Gain Model 242"

this is made of aluminum. I have to ground the mast to get the swr set...correct?

 

[gamegetter]

freezy i am not familiar with the antenna pictured, but it is not an astroplane
on edit:

as to grounding it to set swr's, i would think not, the picture shows it has ground plane radials...your mileage may vary, but you would definitely want to ground for lightning protection, unless if you don't get any of that.

good luck.

 

[freezy]

maybe for static discharge. It's been really dry.

Here are some specs for this antenna.

21.6 FEET TALL. RADIAL=4 FT EACH. TOP TUNNING; LAST ROD.

If this total length is for 10M operation. How do I calculate the total length for cb operation? Do I cross multiply? "21.6 over 10 = N over 11" ??

23.76feet for approximate 5/8 wave on 11M?

 

[jazzsinger]

i think you'll find its an 11m antenna, with 10m instructions to get it past aluminium cb antennas being banned in your country.

by my calculation 5/8 wave at 27.185 in an aluminium antenna with a velocity factor in air of roughly about .97 =

300 (speed of light) / 27.185 (centre of us cb band) = 11.035m x .97 (approx vel. factor of aluminium in air) = 10.70m x .625 (5/8 of 1 wavelength) = 6.69m x 3.28 (to convert to feet) = 21.94 feet or 21 feet 11 odd inches.

starting there and using a swr meter to fine tune it in its final mounting position should see you ok.

about 3-4 inches shorter would tune it around 10m which correlates with your original instructions of it being 21.6 feet for 10m.

 

[freezy]

with the supplied instructions the SWR is off the scale bad.

Thank You for the help

Cheers

Bob

 

[freezy]

Raised and lowered this pain in the rear 7 times. I got it to 1: 2.25 when my shoulders gave out and my semi-patient helper left. With the help of a cheap antenna tuner I'm at 1:1.25 on ch 1 and after retuning 1:1.5 at ch 40


Hooray for cheating!!!!

Oh and another thing...every number we derived didn't work. 1 inch longer than spec. kinda worked

 

[gfl57]

I picked up a supposedly 5/8 wave version of the Astroplane made in Italy by Halcon. The instructions are for setting it up for 10M. I have little interest in that. The last pipe is supposed to be 34.5". There is plenty of pipe to extend another 18" beyond 34.5".

Anyway...to rough set swr can I just lean a mast against the eave of the house?

This is a 10 meter ham antenna, it is not designed for cb. someone on ebay sold a boatload of them claiming they were cb.

 

[allencharles]

your experience with this antenna

I just took a chance and purchased two of these, thinking if they are not good as is, I can just use the tubing in another project, it is hard for metal to be totally bad. The matching coils might be done incorrectly or just to lightly made but for me an 18ft. or so metal pole can be used much as the Hygain 18vs is used, I already a large tapable coil in a metal box I can use to tap this thing for other bands or just make another matching coil for one of these. Anyway if I understand the date this has been up for awhile so please tell me your experience. If it works I will put one up and try it and keep the other one as a spare or use for my vertical project.

 

[Robb]

i think you'll find its an 11m antenna, with 10m instructions to get it past aluminium cb antennas being banned in your country.

by my calculation 5/8 wave at 27.185 in an aluminium antenna with a velocity factor in air of roughly about .97 =

300 (speed of light) / 27.185 (centre of us cb band) = 11.035m x .97 (approx vel. factor of aluminium in air) = 10.70m x .625 (5/8 of 1 wavelength) = 6.69m x 3.28 (to convert to feet) = 21.94 feet or 21 feet 11 odd inches.

starting there and using a swr meter to fine tune it in its final mounting position should see you ok.

about 3-4 inches shorter would tune it around 10m which correlates with your original instructions of it being 21.6 feet for 10m.

What Jazzy says here is correct.
I have never heard of this brand of antenna, but that is beside the real point here. If the antenna is the correct length and the SWR isn't right, there are other factors. For one, if it is installed too close to large metal objects (other than the mounting mast), it can capacitively de-tune any antenna. The other possibility is that the matching section in the base is damaged or out of tune to produce a 50 ohm impedance match. Or both.

with the supplied instructions the SWR is off the scale bad.

Thank You for the help

Cheers

Bob

 

[ranger87black]

I bought 2 of these antennas and they work real good for local an dx.The downside of these is the base of the ant. is poorly made and the coil is cold soldered to the ant. and broke on both ant.also the plastic that the coil is wound on breaks very easily with only 25mph winds. Now I have to figure a way to make the base solid so I can use it again.

 

[W5LZ]

Sounds like it wasn't a very good deal, huh? Oh well. Now you know.
- 'Doc