Hy-Gain came out with the silver Rod and CLR2 antennas that had the impedance matching coils in the base of the antenna as you have shown. Back in the day Linear Amplifiers showed up and these impedance matching coils were being burned up in droves. Hy-Gains answer was the Penetator 500 that got rid of the coil matching coils that just a trace of copper on a circuit board, and used a Haip Pin impedance matching system that handle the high power all the boys were using. Hy-Gain Claimed it would take 1500 watts of power, which was the standard at this time for Ham Radio Linear Amplifiers. I would noy hesitate to unsolder that coil in your antenna try to adjust it for the CH20. Good luck. Jay
I had an original silver rod not long after I got into cb radio think around the early 70’s. It worked good for what it was. I know the sigma Se-80 vertical I got about 6 months ago was a joke. It would do ok on 20 -15 meters and so so on 12-10. It was said to do 80-6. Yeah ok. lol anyway I’ve been thinking about taking the coil out seeing it’s cheap built. For cb I use a jo Gunn hillbilly. So far it’s been a great antenna. Now the hf vertical “Se-80 and the thunder pole” I use to build a 12-10 meter delta loop. Works really well. Thanks for watching!
For the want of a few pennies of heat shrink tubing they risk a short ? By cheap buy twice. I recently bought a Sirio Boomerang antenna - 1/4 wave vertical with counterpoise on it's base loading coil. Tunes so perfectly I thought my meter was busted for a moment. Sadly there is no one on UK CB near me but boy does it pull in 10 meter signals. Just got to get these sunspots done and out the way ! 73.
The coil is soldered to the SO259, but the others are crimped, badly in my opinion. I soldered the coil connections to the crimps. I also removed the hose clamps and drilled and bolted the sections of the main element. That fixed mine!
I noticed the ground being crimped. Good idea on soldering the ground that’s what I’m going to do and also drill and bolt the elements. I don’t like hose clamps holding them together. Great idea! Thanks!
I probably should not do this, but I'll comment for anyone who might be interested. An end-fed half-wave antenna should not require any ground plane which is why half-wave antennas are almost always used on boats and other non-conductive surfaces. They require a matching network of some kind (such as a transformer) at the feed point to bring the super-high feed-point impedance down to 50 ohms. Half-wave antennas such as the old Radio Shack and the Venom (and the various copies) are 18-feet long and often have short non-resonant radials which are used for capacitive loading only (which is why adding ground-plane radials to an A-99 makes no sense). A 5/8 (0.64)-wave antenna is 22-feet long and must usually have a resonant ground plane to work against because it is 3/4 wave electrically, with part of the radiator inhibited to create gain which is accomplished by either a coil (like the old A/S Super Magnums) or linear-loading (like the Penetrator). You cannot turn a 1/2-wave into a 5/8-wave and vice versa without a major change in the antenna's design. All the best!
Hey are you adjusting the very top tip of the antenna up and down??? Cause that’s how you tune it not with any other sections.. the bottom ones should have lines where to tighten them at and your very top tip will be your swr adjustment…Now don’t be afraid to move that very top tip up and down a foot or so to make adjustments… then you can fine tune it in a little at a time…
Yeah I’ve tried adjusting the top with my antenna analyzer. Still never got to where it needed. Mine had two sets of lines on the elements. Tried both. Could be the ground shorting out on the so239 on the coax connector. I’m going to mess with it again soon and see what happens. lol. Thanks for the info and watching !
Doesn't matter if you use the top section or any other section to tune the swr. It's the overall length that matters. I've had these silver rods before and the 5/8th wave ones usually swr to about 1.3 to 1.5. Those small radials have no effect apart from decoupling from the mast. We usually put longer radials on about 1.5 metres long and work well.
Thay antenna is identical to the sigma venom 1/2 wave that I own, exactly the same. They're probably both made by the sigma guys I would think. Anyhow, mine worked fine but also soldered everything after seeing that crimp and nasty solder joint. Did spreading those two lugs help your situation?
I have one with this same exact problem. I bought my analyzer just to figure out this antenna. I bought mine used so i thought the previous owner ran too much power thru it. Now i know that it's probably just a resonate issue. I'm excited to see if you find a way to make it work. I want to use mine for a stationary mobile set up.
I've had a few of these types of antenna. They seem to use poor quality lead free solder with questionable solder joints. I had to rewind one of the transformers using 1mm magnet wire at 6 1/4 turns. This was for the 5/8th version with no radials.
HI, if you want a serious antenna I can recommend the G-Max Grazioli, there is nothing better on the market, you can only go down in quality and cost from this one.
Silver Rod has been laying around for awhile I just decided to see if I could figure out what was causing it to not tune right. I’ll look into to that antenna you mentioned. Currently I’m running a Jo Gunn hillbilly and a full wave 11 meter delta loop. I never heard of the G-Max Grazioli before sounds interesting!
@@cbhamradio1507 all the tests done by various users have shown it to be the best in its type for CB, it is expensive but worth it, surpassing all the Sirio antennas which to date were considered the best in Europe in the CB band together with another brand English, I noticed that the JoGunn antennas are specialized for directives, they seem to be excellent products, here it is rare to see them for CB, rather vertical 5/8 and powerful amplifier, we have truckers who go out with over 5kw they talk to each other from various European states on channel 45 ( 27.465 MHz) the Grazioli company is small and artisanal, all made in Italy, they make truly valid products
Remove those radials and the silver rod goes from 5/8 to 1/2 wave why not slide the upper elements down about 1/2-1" each joint reducing overall length up to 3-4" then do bottom and top. Freq to be used to find if needs add or reduce ( you know old style tune) the auto resonating testers make it easy yes but take you away from trouble shooting the old way K.ISS " keep it simple stupid") All these " tools" take the hobby out of the hobby!
@@user-ef3nu1eh7z I tried sliding the elements as you described and no luck. But I think and hope by moving the two wires apart maybe that will help. Beginning to believe it may have been either touching or close enough to arch a little. Anyway we will see what happens. Good advice! Thanks for watching!
@@cbhamradio1507 is that base section a used piece?? It looked like corrosion on the copper lead and a weak solder joint pumping power would cause an earlier failure Find a manual online for precise lengths silver rods been out there long time and there should be specs available I been messing radio over 50 years ( paid 20$ for CB liscence!!) first radio in middle school 6 channel used Johnson white face!! Then realistic 23 channel and 3 amp power supply with 9' whip bolted to aluminum siding peak on house
@@cbhamradio1507 the sigma 5/8 is 1000 watt rated, 18.5 ft length if I counted right has 6 element pieces My theory loss of ground or reduced shield connect makes antenna appear longer so check shield connects rated 11 meter and 10 meter?r common set 1-1.3
An end fed 5/8 lambda antenna is not resonant on the operation frequency. I’d should be around 50 ohms though at the connector and acceptable vswr. Check for that, not resonances.
Try shout your vertical check, play wit up or down of the element I have the thunder pole my swr 1 to 1 sometime the speck it not right, i use coax RG8 X
Yeah I’m going to see if I fixed it by moving the two wires apart once the weather settles down some. I noticed the specs aren’t right. My thunder pole never worked right due to the metal shavings inside the coil. Thanks for the info and watching!
@@cbhamradio1507 coax is also a minor issue the velocities ratings of each gauge can effect the response of reflect I have at any one time three items jumpers before feedline I used different combos of rg8 rg8x and now 213 some 3' some 5-6' with pair of 3' then 6' rg8 the meters showed same swrs but appeared lower response. On the radio switching around would bring back and lo behold dx responded better!! Like I was louder!! With same swr
@@user-ef3nu1eh7z I’ve done the coax jumper thing on my delta loop. It works sometimes. Think on my delta loop I’m going back to using the 6.1 un un type balun instead of the 75ohm to 50 ohm coaxe deal. Seemed to work better when I had the un un hooked to it. Don’t ya just love antennas and this crazy radio hobby! Lol quality of coax makes a big difference in performance on an antenna. I run rg8 on mine but love to use LMR type one day.
Hy-Gain came out with the silver Rod and CLR2 antennas that had the impedance matching coils in the base of the antenna as you have shown. Back in the day Linear Amplifiers showed up and these impedance matching coils were being burned up in droves. Hy-Gains answer was the Penetator 500 that got rid of the coil matching coils that just a trace of copper on a circuit board, and used a Haip Pin impedance matching system that handle the high power all the boys were using. Hy-Gain Claimed it would take 1500 watts of power, which was the standard at this time for Ham Radio Linear Amplifiers. I would noy hesitate to unsolder that coil in your antenna try to adjust it for the CH20. Good luck. Jay
I had an original silver rod not long after I got into cb radio think around the early 70’s. It worked good for what it was. I know the sigma Se-80 vertical I got about 6 months ago was a joke. It would do ok on 20 -15 meters and so so on 12-10. It was said to do 80-6. Yeah ok. lol anyway I’ve been thinking about taking the coil out seeing it’s cheap built. For cb I use a jo Gunn hillbilly. So far it’s been a great antenna. Now the hf vertical “Se-80 and the thunder pole” I use to build a 12-10 meter delta loop. Works really well.
Thanks for watching!
For the want of a few pennies of heat shrink tubing they risk a short ? By cheap buy twice. I recently bought a Sirio Boomerang antenna - 1/4 wave vertical with counterpoise on it's base loading coil. Tunes so perfectly I thought my meter was busted for a moment. Sadly there is no one on UK CB near me but boy does it pull in 10 meter signals. Just got to get these sunspots done and out the way ! 73.
I have the Hy Gain Silver Rod 1/2 wave and the SWR is pretty flat throughout the 11 meter band.
The coil is soldered to the SO259, but the others are crimped, badly in my opinion. I soldered the coil connections to the crimps. I also removed the hose clamps and drilled and bolted the sections of the main element. That fixed mine!
I noticed the ground being crimped. Good idea on soldering the ground that’s what I’m going to do and also drill and bolt the elements. I don’t like hose clamps holding them together.
Great idea! Thanks!
You may want to try making a small induction coil on the input wire, and adding a 6pf +/- mica cap across it.
Good idea! 👍
I probably should not do this, but I'll comment for anyone who might be interested. An end-fed half-wave antenna should not require any ground plane which is why half-wave antennas are almost always used on boats and other non-conductive surfaces. They require a matching network of some kind (such as a transformer) at the feed point to bring the super-high feed-point impedance down to 50 ohms. Half-wave antennas such as the old Radio Shack and the Venom (and the various copies) are 18-feet long and often have short non-resonant radials which are used for capacitive loading only (which is why adding ground-plane radials to an A-99 makes no sense). A 5/8 (0.64)-wave antenna is 22-feet long and must usually have a resonant ground plane to work against because it is 3/4 wave electrically, with part of the radiator inhibited to create gain which is accomplished by either a coil (like the old A/S Super Magnums) or linear-loading (like the Penetrator). You cannot turn a 1/2-wave into a 5/8-wave and vice versa without a major change in the antenna's design. All the best!
This one is going in the parts bend for future projects or replacement parts for my delta loop. One can always use extra tubing for something one day!
I agree with you on this.
I own this antenna and use it every day with 1.1 1.2 swr
Hey are you adjusting the very top tip of the antenna up and down??? Cause that’s how you tune it not with any other sections.. the bottom ones should have lines where to tighten them at and your very top tip will be your swr adjustment…Now don’t be afraid to move that very top tip up and down a foot or so to make adjustments… then you can fine tune it in a little at a time…
Yeah I’ve tried adjusting the top with my antenna analyzer. Still never got to where it needed. Mine had two sets of lines on the elements. Tried both. Could be the ground shorting out on the so239 on the coax connector. I’m going to mess with it again soon and see what happens. lol.
Thanks for the info and watching !
Doesn't matter if you use the top section or any other section to tune the swr. It's the overall length that matters. I've had these silver rods before and the 5/8th wave ones usually swr to about 1.3 to 1.5. Those small radials have no effect apart from decoupling from the mast. We usually put longer radials on about 1.5 metres long and work well.
Thay antenna is identical to the sigma venom 1/2 wave that I own, exactly the same. They're probably both made by the sigma guys I would think. Anyhow, mine worked fine but also soldered everything after seeing that crimp and nasty solder joint.
Did spreading those two lugs help your situation?
It did some not much. Still trying different adjustments on the antenna to see if I can get it around 1.5.
I have one with this same exact problem.
I bought my analyzer just to figure out this antenna. I bought mine used so i thought the previous owner ran too much power thru it. Now i know that it's probably just a resonate issue.
I'm excited to see if you find a way to make it work.
I want to use mine for a stationary mobile set up.
I’m going to try and work on it soon.think I’m starting by soldering the ground part of the coil and see what happens from there.
@cbhamradio1507
Now that I know that it's not because it's burned up, I'm thinking it might be better to try and direct feed it.
@@Tinman386wisconsin I may do the same with mine. Good idea.
@@cbhamradio1507 you'll probably get to it before I do.
If you do, please let me know how it works out for you.
I've had a few of these types of antenna. They seem to use poor quality lead free solder with questionable solder joints. I had to rewind one of the transformers using 1mm magnet wire at 6 1/4 turns. This was for the 5/8th version with no radials.
I’m not very impressed by the solder work on this antenna at all. My thunder pole was the same way.
HI, if you want a serious antenna I can recommend the G-Max Grazioli, there is nothing better on the market, you can only go down in quality and cost from this one.
Silver Rod has been laying around for awhile I just decided to see if I could figure out what was causing it to not tune right. I’ll look into to that antenna you mentioned. Currently I’m running a Jo Gunn hillbilly and a full wave 11 meter delta loop. I never heard of the G-Max Grazioli before sounds interesting!
@@cbhamradio1507 all the tests done by various users have shown it to be the best in its type for CB, it is expensive but worth it, surpassing all the Sirio antennas which to date were considered the best in Europe in the CB band together with another brand English, I noticed that the JoGunn antennas are specialized for directives, they seem to be excellent products, here it is rare to see them for CB, rather vertical 5/8 and powerful amplifier, we have truckers who go out with over 5kw they talk to each other from various European states on channel 45 ( 27.465 MHz) the Grazioli company is small and artisanal, all made in Italy, they make truly valid products
i cant find paperwork either. i would like to know the max rating 500 ? 1000 ?
I want to think a 1000 but not sure. When “HyGain” made them it was a no brainer to put it together.
Remove those radials and the silver rod goes from 5/8 to 1/2 wave why not slide the upper elements down about 1/2-1" each joint reducing overall length up to 3-4" then do bottom and top. Freq to be used to find if needs add or reduce ( you know old style tune) the auto resonating testers make it easy yes but take you away from trouble shooting the old way K.ISS " keep it simple stupid")
All these " tools" take the hobby out of the hobby!
@@user-ef3nu1eh7z I tried sliding the elements as you described and no luck. But I think and hope by moving the two wires apart maybe that will help. Beginning to believe it may have been either touching or close enough to arch a little. Anyway we will see what happens. Good advice!
Thanks for watching!
@@cbhamradio1507 is that base section a used piece?? It looked like corrosion on the copper lead and a weak solder joint pumping power would cause an earlier failure
Find a manual online for precise lengths silver rods been out there long time and there should be specs available
I been messing radio over 50 years ( paid 20$ for CB liscence!!) first radio in middle school 6 channel used Johnson white face!! Then realistic 23 channel and 3 amp power supply with 9' whip bolted to aluminum siding peak on house
@@cbhamradio1507 the sigma 5/8 is 1000 watt rated, 18.5 ft length if I counted right has 6 element pieces
My theory loss of ground or reduced shield connect makes antenna appear longer so check shield connects rated 11 meter and 10 meter?r common set 1-1.3
An end fed 5/8 lambda antenna is not resonant on the operation frequency. I’d should be around 50 ohms though at the connector and acceptable vswr. Check for that, not resonances.
Try shout your vertical check, play wit up or down of the element I have the thunder pole my swr 1 to 1 sometime the speck it not right, i use coax RG8 X
Yeah I’m going to see if I fixed it by moving the two wires apart once the weather settles down some. I noticed the specs aren’t right. My thunder pole never worked right due to the metal shavings inside the coil. Thanks for the info and watching!
@@cbhamradio1507 coax is also a minor issue the velocities ratings of each gauge can effect the response of reflect I have at any one time three items jumpers before feedline I used different combos of rg8 rg8x and now 213 some 3' some 5-6' with pair of 3' then 6' rg8 the meters showed same swrs but appeared lower response. On the radio switching around would bring back and lo behold dx responded better!! Like I was louder!! With same swr
@@user-ef3nu1eh7z I’ve done the coax jumper thing on my delta loop. It works sometimes. Think on my delta loop I’m going back to using the 6.1 un un type balun instead of the 75ohm to 50 ohm coaxe deal. Seemed to work better when I had the un un hooked to it. Don’t ya just love antennas and this crazy radio hobby! Lol quality of coax makes a big difference in performance on an antenna. I run rg8 on mine but love to use LMR type one day.
Buy a new mega range 827 antenna.