Painting an aluminum antenna

[Captain Kilowatt]

Forgot to mention that we used to paint the aluminum elements and boom on a pair of five element stacked yagis cut for 164.940 MHz. These were used as a point to point radio circuit delivering programming content to an AM broadcast site. The site was prone to heavy icing and the flat black paint helped the antennas draw heat from the sun and allowed the ice to melt much quicker than if unpainted. No adverse affects there either.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

maybe its ok on much higher frequencies . I would not do it on low band tho .

Why not? Plastic insulation will affect things much more than a coat of paint and all the plastic insulation on a wire antenna for low bands does is lower the resonant frequency a tiny amount meaning the antenna has to be a few inches shorter than if it was bare.As long as the paint is not bridging any insulators things will be fine.

Why would paint be any worse than encapsulating an entire antenna in a thick fiberglass covering? Think fiberglass whips or antenna radomes. They are invisible to RF. Take a look at military mobile HF antennas. They are usually painted green from top to bottom and NO the military does not use some secret formulation just for them.

 

[Mudfoot]

The military doesn't use anything different, they just pay 50 times more than its worth.

 

[wavrider]

http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php?topic=22356.0

some links oh they are hams they must not know what they are doing, even if they passed their exams and got a license.

Spray painting antenna - The RadioReference.com Forums

here are some more

Organizational Maintenance Manual: Air Traffic Control Central AN/TSW-7A ... - Google Books

hmmm even the government paints there antennas

 

[towerdog]

All a non conductive coating will do change the velocity factor. It become resonant at s lower freq but coating needs to be alot thicker than paint...more like PVC or fiberglass

 

[towerdog]

Plastic don't radiate lol

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

oghhhhhhhh hello , plastic can to radiate just like rubber or any other material . Fiberglass has a different atom structures , such as plastic , Teflon and glass. your wrong captain . a coat a paint will effect an antenna. you haven't read anything I wrote before . think of it as pressure capturing the rf energy . if you have ice on your antenna , swr will not change really , but your amplifier and transmitter will not like it at all . most of the time you will blow the amplifier up .

WOW! No I mean that. Wow. Ice build up will not change the SWR hey. I wonder why the high SWR detectors in my transmitters kept tripping them off the air. You don't supposeit was due to high SWR caused by the ice build up do you? BTW why would your radio or amp not like it if the swr did not change?

I stand by my statement. There is far too much proof in support of it including been there done that. I think someone has been too close to 11m megawatt amps for far too long.

 

[binrat]

Plastic don't radiate lol

op:

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

I'd have mine powder coated if that would work.

 

[towerdog]

WOW! No I mean that. Wow. Ice build up will not change the SWR hey. I wonder why the high SWR detectors in my transmitters kept tripping them off the air. You don't supposeit was due to high SWR caused by the ice build up do you? BTW why would your radio or amp not like it if the swr did not change?

I stand by my statement. There is far too much proof in support of it including been there done that. I think someone has been too close to 11m megawatt amps for far too long.

gee whiz, so i guess all those times I had to climb hundreds of feet in the air in the freezing cold with risk of slipping on ice to knock the damn ice off a dish was just for fun?

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

gee whiz, so i guess all those times I had to climb hundreds of feet in the air in the freezing cold with risk of slipping on ice to knock the damn ice off a dish was just for fun?

Most of that was likely because the aperture was blocked as the actuall antenna is inside the feed assembly if it was a regular dish antenna or maybe outside in front if it was a paraflector type.I hear you however. I have had a ton of stuff trip due to high SWR from ice. Yagis are really bad as the directors become detuned and function as reflectors and your forward pattern and gain goes all to hell.

 

[towerdog]

there is a simple spray coating you put on them, last for years...unfortunately clearwire thought they were saving money.......later they had tower crews go out and apply the coating

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

Painting a Fiberglass CB or Ham Radio Antenna

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

you can do that only on those kinds of antenna's . the wire is inside of the fiberglass. lol

Whether it's a wire or not,it's the radiating part of the antenna.
You have to think of it in radome terms. A very thin radome. What do radomes do?
Pick your spray on radome wisely.

 

[towerdog]

I heard on the bowl if you paint your antenna pink it will add 3db of gain