N6XCR - Sad news. Jim passed away November 23, 2018, after a long illness. Many thanks to all of you who made radio contacts fun for Jim all of the years.
Impressive setup. Ground-mount appears to provide a wide bandwidth at nearly flat SWR. Ground-mount appears to facilitate the predicted low-angle signal takeoff. Good work Dave.
Great video, very good demonstration, Dave. I just built and set up a 5/8 wave 10 meter ground plane a week ago and installed it on a tripod bolted to the peak of my house, with the radials being about 20' off the ground. Your video prompted me to realize I did not ground it! Doh! You may be sure I will for sure do that before this day is over. I like your TS450S; I have a 440S. I used to be KD5OAA but let it expire but intend to re-test and renew soon. In the meantime I listen a lot and am pretty sure I've heard you. You have great on air personality...a genuinely nice guy and a good tech. 73's from Abilene, Texas!
Wow, so fun to hear my old friend Jim N6XCR in this video. Jim was such a special person. Thanks to Dennis for giving me the heads up. I will call his sister and play it for her, 73, Bruce Nolte N1BN.
Good stuff Dave, I look at alot of your videos before homebrewing an antenna. The only thing I did different was I made a little mounting base that was separate and was below your antenna to mast plate and used aluminum tubing for the ground radials. Same principle; just no tieoffs for ground plane radials. Keep up the great work; always enjoy your videos.
Thank's for posting this. Made it a couple months ago out of spare stuff in my shack, really impressed how good it works! So much so I invited the clubs Antenna Specialist Snob along with his high dollar portable to the local public high spot for a friendly. After hearing during setup from him about how I wouldn't be able to talk across the parking lot he got quiet when I got some comparable hits to his. I've also made a few in VHF 5/8 Freq. specific in portable form for the local Emg. response team. Far from perfect, but with budgets how they are it sure beats rubber ducky's. 73's
Hey Dave, I have been watching 1 video a day from you and you and have built my confidence greatly! One comment about this video is that I am COMPLETLY blown away at how wide banded this vertical is.
You have done it once again Dave! Love your vids and the antennas you build! I had to smile when I saw that the swr's were just about flat the entire way through. Even through the 27Mhz 11mtr band. Kudos to another job well done!
Hi Dave, you've got some good ideas! I went back to the old CB days and I had 2 stainless steel whips and knew I needed 2 more to get a ground plane antenna built. One of the 8 foot whips was the vertical element and the other 3 were the ground elements. The biggest job was making the mount which was a steel pipe and a small circular plate that was brazed on the end of the pipe. The small plate was drilled to accept plastic mobile insulator. These standoff insulators are used in CB mobile installations. The pipe was a mast sized steel pipe and another larger pipe (6 inches long), was slid over the pipe with 3 steel nuts brazed to the larger pipe for the horizontal ground radials which screwed into the nuts on the larger pipe. Another large nut was brazed to the big pipe to lock the pipe to the mast pipe to keep the pipe from rotating in the wind. I used a CB mobile mount that accepts a PL-259 female screw connector. The coax and the connector has to be slid into the 2 foot mast pipe. The PL connector on the end has a 3/8 stud which will take a double female 3/8 connector for the vertical element. A continuity check needs to be made between the coax center lead and outer shell to be sure that the vertical element is not shorted and also that the vertical element shows continuity with the center of the coax. Assembling this on the tower is no problem just slide the mast pipe down through the center of the tower, lock the mast pipe down with the tower's mast bolt, slide the larger pipe down around the mast pipe and lock it down with the bolt that is threaded with the nut that was brazed to the larger pipe. I used a larger bolt and nut for this since it will need to lock the 6 inch pipe down on the mast pipe. You then screw on the elements, one for the vertical element then for the drooping radials. A person could make a L-bracket drilled for U-bolts instead of the way I did it. The old ground plane antennas used a L-shaped bracket which were flimsy and the elements were made of aluminum tubing which seldom lasted a ice storm. Several downsides of using the stainless steel mobile element is the current cost of them and since the vertical element is not grounded, the coax should be grounded and not connected when lightening is present. The stainless steel elements use to be $15.00 each about 25 years ago and now they have more than doubled. The plus side is that they are durable and will survive high winds and a ice storm. The SWR on this antenna is almost flat on 10 meters and is around 1.5 SWR on 11 meters. A lot of these antennas were used as scanner antennas years ago. It is broad tuned and with a antenna tuner can be used on several other bands. I doubt if anyone could ever burn out the element with high power RF! :) Have fun experimenting!
I couldn't believe how flat and low the SWRs were. Probably better than a purchased one. If I lived close to him I would see if I couldn't help with a few for an education. Thanks for posting.
+onemarktwoyou Low SWR tells us absolutely nothing about antenna efficiency or performance, for example a dummy load has very low SWR across a huge bandwidth yet makes a very poor antenna Please note it's not " SWR's" it's SWR
I want to build really high quality .64 wave ground planes for 6 & 10 meters the longest and most efficient single radiator antenna system Keep up the good work Rekindling The Reformation !!
Normally the braided shield goes to ground and the center coaxial cable conductor would be positive. The long side of a j-pole is normally positive. Some antennas, like a dipole, are not polarized. It would be best if you contacted the manufacturer about installation. Thanks for watching! :)
To ground a mast mounted antenna, run a ground wire up the mast from a ground rod up to the mounting bracket and attach it to a U-bolt. Use a lightening arrestor at the base of the mast and connect it also to the ground rod. I use lightening arrestors at the base of my tower and also where the cables enter the house. With a ground mounted vertical I don't use a lightening arrestor at the base of the antenna because of it's close proximity to the ground. Thanks for watching and 73! :)
I built a portable 6M antenna where I tried to keep everything to less than 8ft so that it would fit in the back of my pickup. When I look at this antenna it seems that it would be excellent for a portable-in-a-park build! I would like to do something like this in a 20M or 15M version. Kudos for being kind to the CB guys. We don't need to slander them, most do a good job of slandering themselves :P
Dave, This is a 10 Meter ground mounted vertical not a ground plane. A ground plane is alway elevated to decouple the radials from the actual ground to eliminate ground losses. The reason the vertical is longer than the formula is that the actual length will be aproximately 102 degrees and the mounting plate will act like a capacitor to ground canceling out the inductive reactance of the additional length and giving a better match. Ted VE6AMR
ebear1ca Yes correct, I think An attempt to replicate using fiberglass stakes and no mounting plate has yielded SWRs no better than 1.6:1 Could also be the feedline, but doubtful Will try adding pf
+ebear1ca, If you measure the imput impedance at 102 degrees it should be somewhere near 50 + j 100 so a capacitive reactance of - j 100 will give you an almost 1 to 1 SWR.
If you look at the ARRL Antenna book you will see that the feed point impedance of vertical cut for 102 degrees is R 50 ohms + j100 ohms; and by feeding the antenna through a capacitor of -j 100 ohms the reactances cancel leaving a feed pint impedance of R 50 ohms a perfect match to your coax and a resonant antenna.
Hi John, You can try to add 120 or 360 radials, being as perfect as possible, to try to achieve a perfect ground plane as suggested in the handbook. But in real practice and depending on your location you may not be able to tell any real difference between using 4 or 360. I had a friend who once scratched his head and wondered why is antenna didn't work any better after adding all those radials. You can always try them though and see if it helps. Thanks for watching and 73.
The vertical element is 2.616 m. The calculated length for the radials is 2.515 m and were made 2.54 m long. The mounting plate is about 20 cm tall. Sorry I don't have any idea what size PVC pipe or aluminum tubing is available in your country. Again, thanks for watching. :)
Another good project needing some flux and shrink wrap to seal the ends to make them a little better at being water resistant, with a layered shrink wrap to make it look professionally done. Looks like a project right up my alley, 030, Gary in Rogers, Ar. 73's. Or GLB5ABL see ya.
Just built one similar to this but elevated, and using wire radials .A simple stainless 102" whip, mirror mount and 3 12 gauge wire radials mounted to the fiberglass military masts. the radials are supported by 3 4 foot fiberglass driveway rods that go through one of the fiberglass mast and are 120 degrees apart i've got it up on about 22 feet of masting works pretty well we have our club net on 28.333 wednesdays at 8pm hope to hear you jim KB1PFL.
I bought mine from a local company called Air Parts. I found a similar company online and added a link to them on my website (click on the links page then Antenna Parts). I think they sell aluminum by the foot. You want the .058" wall thickness aluminum tubing. Thanks for watching and 73! :)
I could have shortened it by a half inch or inch to make 29.800 MHz a little more resonant. I think the medium size aluminum tubing that I used, and possibly the radials may not be the exact same length after stretching them out, made the antenna quite broad-banded.
Really well done video. I appreciate the time and effort that you put into these. This really helps the Amateur, new and / or experienced. Please keep them coming. 73 de Ron KB3VEW
Hi Dave, I enjoy your videos. I built a Three Element Yagi Beam from tubing I bought at Home Depot and Sutherlands Lumber Co. Needless to say it would have been more cost effective for me to buy The Maco CB beam and put it on 10 meters. For the sake of future antenna projects, I would like to see a video on a Three element Yagi.
I've added a webpage about this antenna to my website. The link to my website is at the top of my UA-cam channel. There is a link on that page that will show the pattern and gain of this antenna at different heights. You can also use even larger tubing like I did on the 10/15/20m vertical antenna. If mast mounted then bring the radials down at a 45 degree angle to match the impedance. Thanks for watching and 73! :)
My cousin went outside just to turn his TV antenna and a tiny jolt of lightning went through the antenna and stopped his heart. No one was there to get it started again that was the sad part. If someone were there and knew what to do he would have survived.
For better performance mount the antenna on a mast. For more gain phase two or more antennas together. Phasing antennas is something that I have not yet discussed but for 11 meters a phasing harness can be purchased instead of made. A phasing harness will match two antennas to a single 50 ohm feed-point. Space the antennas 8' to 16' apart and add the harness. This equal phasing will produce a broadside pattern (like a dipole) and will add about 3db gain. Thanks for watching and 73! :)
Some not mentioned,when using new 2017\18 DC isolated SMP power supplies for radio,the DC ground must not come in contact with earth via the coax braid.Most NEW cb and HF radios are common DC grounded internally ,the SO-239 socket is at DC ground potential.When coax connected the braid is carry that DC negative,if mast \bracket is earthed you will create a short,modern 2017/18 DC isolated SMP do not like this and why they do RFI\DC noise on bus line!and part of the reason they get a bad rap,just ensure the ground planes are connected to braid,but use a insulated mast stub so mast embedded in earth potential is isolated from braid\mount.Most tech papers and antenna books are not up to date with this fact,I discovered this issue on a industrial project after speaking to designers of test sample SMP we used causing a problem.Turn out this is a big no no with NEW DC isolated SMP only ,Linear PSU fine.WE did proof testing and could see the problems on test gear the minute earth potential conected to braid\DC negative side of SMP I trailed antenna mounted in isolated way and must have ground planes and it worked great and no issues either with SMP power supply and RFI problems.Great video Dave
I get my aluminum tubing online from DX engineering. You can get sections that already have slits in them. Makes it easy! Right now I am using it for a 10 meter dipole and the mast it's on top of.
Great video Jim looks like you are 367 mile East of on a 111 degree heading. The town I grew up in was said to be the half way point on the shortest route from KS to Denver. That was before I70 was constructed. I read that 468/f is no magic number but the figure that worked best for the ham where he lived that had an article publish The article read that said that, also said we should make note of our own results to create a formula that works best at our own location 73
To complicated. I have been very successful with long distance contacts on both 10 and 11 meters (CB) just by using a 102" steel whip, attached to part of a mirror mount bracket, and bolted to the wood fascia at the top of the gable end of my house roof. I then took a piece of 8 gauge wire of the same length, connected it to the mounting bracket, and ran it along the eve. Obviously you have to tune both the 102" whip and the wire to the right length for the band you are using it on. I used 80 watts on a Uniden Washington SSB 11 meter base, got an swr that wouldn't even move the meter, and made several contacts in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and other islands in the South Pacific. Overall, I have had better luck with dipole antennas than anything else.
Yes, you can use copper tubing but remember you may need some way to adjust the length. For more information about this antenna please visit my web site at amateurradio.bz
Dave put aluminum tube kit together for 11 meters in a j pole kit they can slide down the top part for 10 meters 1 foot 11 meter antenna 1 foot longer I made one for cb for my brother I made one out of 3/4 inch copper pipe but it to gravey aluminum tuneing not as heave the new hams and those on cb would buy the antenna
Helpful video . I’m puzzled though , I thought the term “ground plane “ was used to refer to a vertical that has the radials elevated with the antenna above ground several feet .
I had no idea 10 years ago. I hope you still building. I did want to ask why pvc to hold the antenna rather than aluminum? Hope you get this. Very nice work. KC6ART 73
If you wanted to mount the antenna up high the wires for radials probably wouldn't be practical. How could you make something to mount aluminum tube radials?
I don’t know if you will see this now, but I was hoping you would show how you mounted the coax to the antenna. I missed that and I kinda wanted to see it. I really need a 10 meter antenna as I’m only a tech and I want more than 2m/440. Thank you -73- W1KPS
Holiday I am K1 emw I have a ground mount is vertical I am not impressed with it too awful much I have a bout 20 radios in the ground I would like to lift it up in the air a little bit what is your thought with that if you would drop me a note I would appreciate it thank you seven threes God bless
Great video brother, glad to see that thare are hams that dont hate CB or think that CB's give hams a bad name, allot of hams were CBers (like me) before they got there tickit and some (like myself) still have them and i carry one in my jump kit. now i need to set one up in the shack. I did want to buy a antenna or do a dipole, but i might. so this project fits GREAT VIDEO BROTHER! 73 KC9PXZ (hope to work you HF somtime)
Please could you give me the measures in cm, whereas in Portugal only work with cm. if you have a photo to the scheme was better. I'm thinking about doing this antenna for DX in banda citizen. Thank'm learning a lot with the material you have here.
One thing that caught my eye was that you didn't give and exciting comment(like you have in previous videos) during the video of how good the SWR was from 26 MHtz all the way to 28.6 MHz. What I got from it was that you were so astonished, quietly, and that was why you went to the Kenwood just to double check if this was true or not. Am I correct on this Dave?
Thank you Dave. I would like to build a 1/2-wave 10m ground plane with tubing. Can the radials still be 1/4 wave? Any matching required between the radiator and the radials? Thanks!
Hi Dave spent hrs watching your vids fantastic and interesting ,,, I was told antennas have to be a certain height above the ground for a given band and this antenna is on the ground ,, I thought they had to be a half wave length above the ground else it wouldn't work very well ,, so could you explain why this is working so good from ground height please many thanks Shane ,,CB operater in the uk England
A quarter wave antenna has a high angle of radiation. If your using it for local comms it works best elevated esp in hilly terrain and depends on your application and site location\terrain as too how you mount it. There a good explanation here www.hamuniverse.com/w5alt14wavegroundplanevert.html Also another note: if your are using a switched mode (isolated)power supply (to run your transceiver) do not ground the ground plane wires to earth (dirt) It causes SMP to become very noisy and they don't like the DC neg\SO239 (they are commoned up on modern radios)of radio grounded to earth (Frame ground),it creates a earth loop and you'll have a lot of hash created,I have seen this problem and very little information on subject, I found out this during a research project with isolated ground systems and what was causing the noise problems,grounding the DC neg side to frame ground. This i is a recent discovery with SMP use and lot of technical books don't explain this or are out of date with current technology,so if your using your cb radio with a Switch mode power supply ensure the ground plane wires are isolated from real ground. I tried a lot of high end and low end brands in my research. Im sure this is why lots of operators have had troubles using these SMP in past,if using a standard linear PSU ull be fine to ground wires. My elevated quarter wave works extremely well 50Watts NFM or SSB can work me +45 miles local easy ( I have done 150 miles line of sight on ssb) and constant and 5,100miles SSB DX sky wave and that in a hilly terrain! Bandwidth is very good with this design and covers cb and more! It has no gain,but just add RF power for a bit more umph! I added a 5 turn RG-213 or RG-58\U coax on 4.25" former (plastic golf hole flag plug) RF choke (www.karinya.net/g3txq/chokes/)at feed point of antenna. My 3 groundplane wires had insulators on them and cord to position them at right angles. At 10m high antenna from ground level it works extremely well for base to base or mobile contacts on NFM mode on cb\ham,the ground mounted one tried on Hill tops and that also worked very well too from a semi fixed location. Mounting system in video is perfectly good,an elevated version is perfectly good,depends on your terrain\location and how you want antenna to be used is all I can say on my experiance with this antenna. Always enjoy watching these videos very practical! All the best Rob 73's
I been looking for a nice antenna for my friend place. 2 meter and 11 meter mono pole on the ground. would a soda can 12 meter work for all cb frequencies.
@Dave Tadlock - Question ? How would you calculate the radial length if i were to make this and put in air 20feet ? How long would buried radials have to be / Thanks so much for a reply ? 73's
GREAT ANTENNA!!!! NOW WHATS THE DB GAIN ON THIS ANTENNA ECT ECT...?? DO YOU HAVE MESUREMENTS ON THAT AND ALSO CAN YOU USE THICK TUBING IF YOUR IN A HIGH WIND AREA AND PLANNING ON PUTING THE ANTENNA UP HIGH? THANK YOU DAVE FOR YOUR HARD WORK! "WA1ORP"
Dave I cannot find any help, I aquired a maco 5000 ground plane antenna , it says slide the antenna in to the base unit 6 inches through that white nylon insulator , my question is this ,, ,there is a bolt that holds the arm on to the base unit that has the so-239 or whatever that connector is , Im wondering if that metal bolt goes through that metal arm and through the base unit and through the antenna out the other side with a nut , if so , what is the point in that nylon insulator and how is that not a short?
Hi Dave, you're a good help and your videos are great. I have a question about a "J-pole" antenna for FM broadcast. I have a transmitter of 800 Watts. I purchased a J-Pole antenna for it, but he seem that this types of antenna doesn't have polarities +&- Positive or Neg. can you help me with that, please?because I feel afraid to connected to my Transmitter.
Last but not least Dave, I wanted to ask you about something. I have been taught that any Verticle Antenna cut to a freq with out any tunning coil or tunning array like this one has around a 40ohm or so. And this is why a steal whip can only be tunned no lower then a 1.3 on cb. Is this true? How is your verticle able to have a perfect 1.0 swr877
Hello, I want to make an antenna to operate satellites in the 2-meter band. I'm thinking about building a cross Yagi. Do you have any better suggestions? Ricardo PU5LRK
Greetings Dave, is possible to use this type of antenna for 6 mtrs? how did you arrive at the measurements for ten meters? I would like to dothis for six meters as well. thanks for the info, very helpful
Hi Dave I saw all you videos.... I got a question for you copper or aluminum pipe to build antennas... what is the difference? maybe you can show a video about this topic ..... thanks greetings from Chicago...
would like to try your 10 meter vertical would you please tell me what coax you used and was it the same all the way to the turner and how long was the run thanks Bob KB8DRO
N6XCR - Sad news. Jim passed away November 23, 2018, after a long illness. Many thanks to all of you who made radio contacts fun for Jim all of the years.
Dave is the best antenna guy I know. Thank you very much, Dave.
Impressive setup. Ground-mount appears to provide a wide bandwidth at nearly flat SWR. Ground-mount appears to facilitate the predicted low-angle signal takeoff. Good work Dave.
Great video, very good demonstration, Dave. I just built and set up a 5/8 wave 10 meter ground plane a week ago and installed it on a tripod bolted to the peak of my house, with the radials being about 20' off the ground. Your video prompted me to realize I did not ground it! Doh! You may be sure I will for sure do that before this day is over. I like your TS450S; I have a 440S. I used to be KD5OAA but let it expire but intend to re-test and renew soon. In the meantime I listen a lot and am pretty sure I've heard you. You have great on air personality...a genuinely nice guy and a good tech. 73's from Abilene, Texas!
Thanks for positing this video. My friend Jim N6XCR was a friend of mine for almost 30 years. 73 Bruce N1BN
Wow, so fun to hear my old friend Jim N6XCR in this video. Jim was such a special person. Thanks to Dennis for giving me the heads up. I will call his sister and play it for her, 73, Bruce Nolte N1BN.
Good stuff Dave, I look at alot of your videos before homebrewing an antenna.
The only thing I did different was I made a little mounting base that was separate and
was below your antenna to mast plate and used aluminum tubing for the ground
radials. Same principle; just no tieoffs for ground plane radials.
Keep up the great work; always enjoy your videos.
Thank's for posting this. Made it a couple months ago out of spare stuff in my shack, really impressed how good it works! So much so I invited the clubs Antenna Specialist Snob along with his high dollar portable to the local public high spot for a friendly. After hearing during setup from him about how I wouldn't be able to talk across the parking lot he got quiet when I got some comparable hits to his. I've also made a few in VHF 5/8 Freq. specific in portable form for the local Emg. response team. Far from perfect, but with budgets how they are it sure beats rubber ducky's. 73's
Hey Dave, I have been watching 1 video a day from you and you and have built my confidence greatly! One comment about this video is that I am COMPLETLY blown away at how wide banded this vertical is.
You have done it once again Dave! Love your vids and the antennas you build! I had to smile when I saw that the swr's were just about flat the entire way through. Even through the 27Mhz 11mtr band. Kudos to another job well done!
Hi Dave, you've got some good ideas! I went back to the old CB days and I had 2 stainless steel whips and knew I needed
2 more to get a ground plane antenna built. One of the 8 foot whips was the vertical element and the other 3 were the ground
elements. The biggest job was making the mount which was a steel pipe and a small circular plate that was brazed on the
end of the pipe. The small plate was drilled to accept plastic mobile insulator. These standoff insulators are used in CB mobile installations. The pipe was a mast sized steel pipe and another larger pipe (6 inches long), was slid over the pipe with 3 steel nuts brazed to the larger pipe for the horizontal ground radials which screwed into the nuts on the larger pipe. Another large nut was brazed to the big pipe to lock the pipe to the mast pipe to keep the pipe from rotating in the wind. I used a CB mobile mount that accepts a PL-259 female screw connector. The coax and the connector has to be slid into the 2 foot mast
pipe. The PL connector on the end has a 3/8 stud which will take a double female 3/8 connector for the
vertical element. A continuity check needs to be made between the coax center lead and outer shell to be sure that the
vertical element is not shorted and also that the vertical element shows continuity with the center of the coax.
Assembling this on the tower is no problem just slide the mast pipe down through the center of the tower, lock the mast
pipe down with the tower's mast bolt, slide the larger pipe down around the mast pipe and lock it down with the bolt that is
threaded with the nut that was brazed to the larger pipe. I used a larger bolt and nut for this since it will need to lock the
6 inch pipe down on the mast pipe. You then screw on the elements, one for the vertical element then for the drooping
radials. A person could make a L-bracket drilled for U-bolts instead of the way I did it.
The old ground plane antennas used a L-shaped bracket which were flimsy and the elements were made of aluminum tubing
which seldom lasted a ice storm. Several downsides of using the stainless steel mobile element is the current cost of them
and since the vertical element is not grounded, the coax should be grounded and not connected when lightening is present.
The stainless steel elements use to be $15.00 each about 25 years ago and now they have more than doubled. The plus
side is that they are durable and will survive high winds and a ice storm.
The SWR on this antenna is almost flat on 10 meters and is around 1.5 SWR on 11 meters. A lot of these antennas were
used as scanner antennas years ago. It is broad tuned and with a antenna tuner can be used on several other bands. I doubt if anyone could ever burn out the element with high power RF! :)
Have fun experimenting!
Will this antenna work near the ground? Where the radials ends just touching the ground.
I couldn't believe how flat and low the SWRs were. Probably better than a purchased one. If I lived close to him I would see if I couldn't help with a few for an education.
Thanks for posting.
+onemarktwoyou Low SWR tells us absolutely nothing about antenna efficiency or performance, for example a dummy load has very low SWR across a huge bandwidth yet makes a very poor antenna Please note it's not " SWR's" it's SWR
I want to build really high quality .64 wave ground planes for 6 & 10 meters
the longest and most efficient single radiator antenna system
Keep up the good work Rekindling The Reformation !!
Normally the braided shield goes to ground and the center coaxial cable conductor would be positive. The long side of a j-pole is normally positive. Some antennas, like a dipole, are not polarized. It would be best if you contacted the manufacturer about installation. Thanks for watching! :)
To ground a mast mounted antenna, run a ground wire up the mast from a ground rod up to the mounting bracket and attach it to a U-bolt. Use a lightening arrestor at the base of the mast and connect it also to the ground rod. I use lightening arrestors at the base of my tower and also where the cables enter the house. With a ground mounted vertical I don't use a lightening arrestor at the base of the antenna because of it's close proximity to the ground. Thanks for watching and 73! :)
Great video. From N2WSM in NYS. Studying for my General. 73’s
I built a portable 6M antenna where I tried to keep everything to less than 8ft so that it would fit in the back of my pickup. When I look at this antenna it seems that it would be excellent for a portable-in-a-park build! I would like to do something like this in a 20M or 15M version. Kudos for being kind to the CB guys. We don't need to slander them, most do a good job of slandering themselves :P
Dave, This is a 10 Meter ground mounted vertical not a ground plane. A ground plane is alway elevated to decouple the radials from the actual ground to eliminate ground losses. The reason the vertical is longer than the formula is that the actual length will be aproximately 102 degrees and the mounting plate will act like a capacitor to ground canceling out the inductive reactance of the additional length and giving a better match.
Ted VE6AMR
ebear1ca Yes correct, I think
An attempt to replicate using fiberglass stakes and no mounting plate has yielded SWRs no better than 1.6:1
Could also be the feedline, but doubtful
Will try adding pf
+ebear1ca, If you measure the imput impedance at 102 degrees it should be somewhere near 50 + j 100 so a capacitive reactance of - j 100 will give you an almost 1 to 1 SWR.
ebear1ca Very helpful, thanks.
Why measure at 102° though? MFJ manual recommends 360°
If you look at the ARRL Antenna book you will see that the feed point impedance of vertical cut for 102 degrees is R 50 ohms + j100 ohms; and by feeding the antenna through a capacitor of -j 100 ohms the reactances cancel leaving a feed pint impedance of R 50 ohms a perfect match to your coax and a resonant antenna.
ebear1ca OIC, thanks. Don't have that one, but is on the list
Hi John, You can try to add 120 or 360 radials, being as perfect as possible, to try to achieve a perfect ground plane as suggested in the handbook. But in real practice and depending on your location you may not be able to tell any real difference between using 4 or 360. I had a friend who once scratched his head and wondered why is antenna didn't work any better after adding all those radials. You can always try them though and see if it helps. Thanks for watching and 73.
The vertical element is 2.616 m. The calculated length for the radials is 2.515 m and were made 2.54 m long. The mounting plate is about 20 cm tall. Sorry I don't have any idea what size PVC pipe or aluminum tubing is available in your country. Again, thanks for watching. :)
The copper will with weather, convert to white dust. I recommend using a SO259 a the antenna and then a PL259.
Another good project needing some flux and shrink wrap to seal the ends to make them a little better at being water resistant, with a layered shrink wrap to make it look professionally done. Looks like a project right up my alley, 030, Gary in Rogers, Ar. 73's. Or GLB5ABL see ya.
Just built one similar to this but elevated, and using wire radials
.A simple stainless 102" whip, mirror mount and 3 12 gauge wire radials mounted to the fiberglass military masts. the radials are supported by 3 4 foot fiberglass driveway rods that go through one of the fiberglass mast and are 120 degrees apart i've got it up on about 22 feet of masting works pretty well we have our club net on 28.333 wednesdays at 8pm hope to hear you jim KB1PFL.
That worked out well. I think I’ll try it.
I bought mine from a local company called Air Parts. I found a similar company online and added a link to them on my website (click on the links page then Antenna Parts). I think they sell aluminum by the foot. You want the .058" wall thickness aluminum tubing. Thanks for watching and 73! :)
Another fine video Dave, thanks, 73s.
I would love to see you make an antenna like this as a flagpole for HMA applications.
I could have shortened it by a half inch or inch to make 29.800 MHz a little more resonant. I think the medium size aluminum tubing that I used, and possibly the radials may not be the exact same length after stretching them out, made the antenna quite broad-banded.
I just realized you had a QSO with the famous Jim Breshears N6XCR. Sadly I think he went silent key in 2018.
Really well done video. I appreciate the time and effort that you put into these. This really helps the Amateur, new and / or experienced. Please keep them coming.
73 de Ron KB3VEW
Hi Dave, I enjoy your videos. I built a Three Element Yagi Beam from tubing I bought at Home Depot and Sutherlands Lumber Co. Needless to say it would have been more cost effective for me to buy The Maco CB beam and put it on 10 meters. For the sake of future antenna projects, I would like to see a video on a Three element Yagi.
Another excellent video sir! Keep up the great work.
I've added a webpage about this antenna to my website. The link to my website is at the top of my UA-cam channel. There is a link on that page that will show the pattern and gain of this antenna at different heights. You can also use even larger tubing like I did on the 10/15/20m vertical antenna. If mast mounted then bring the radials down at a 45 degree angle to match the impedance. Thanks for watching and 73! :)
Hey Dave , miss your videos.
My cousin went outside just to turn his TV antenna and a tiny jolt of lightning went through the antenna and stopped his heart. No one was there to get it started again that was the sad part. If someone were there and knew what to do he would have survived.
For better performance mount the antenna on a mast. For more gain phase two or more antennas together. Phasing antennas is something that I have not yet discussed but for 11 meters a phasing harness can be purchased instead of made. A phasing harness will match two antennas to a single 50 ohm feed-point. Space the antennas 8' to 16' apart and add the harness. This equal phasing will produce a broadside pattern (like a dipole) and will add about 3db gain. Thanks for watching and 73! :)
Some not mentioned,when using new 2017\18 DC isolated SMP power supplies for radio,the DC ground must not come in contact with earth via the coax braid.Most NEW cb and HF radios are common DC grounded internally ,the SO-239 socket is at DC ground potential.When coax connected the braid is carry that DC negative,if mast \bracket is earthed you will create a short,modern 2017/18 DC isolated SMP do not like this and why they do RFI\DC noise on bus line!and part of the reason they get a bad rap,just ensure the ground planes are connected to braid,but use a insulated mast stub so mast embedded in earth potential is isolated from braid\mount.Most tech papers and antenna books are not up to date with this fact,I discovered this issue on a industrial project after speaking to designers of test sample SMP we used causing a problem.Turn out this is a big no no with NEW DC isolated SMP only ,Linear PSU fine.WE did proof testing and could see the problems on test gear the minute earth potential conected to braid\DC negative side of SMP I trailed antenna mounted in isolated way and must have ground planes and it worked great and no issues either with SMP power supply and RFI problems.Great video Dave
I get my aluminum tubing online from DX engineering. You can get sections that already have slits in them. Makes it easy! Right now I am using it for a 10 meter dipole and the mast it's on top of.
Great video Jim looks like you are 367 mile East of on a 111 degree heading. The town I grew up in was said to be the half way point on the shortest route from KS to Denver. That was before I70 was constructed. I read that 468/f is no magic number but the figure that worked best for the ham where he lived that had an article publish The article read that said that, also said we should make note of our own results to create a formula that works best at our own location 73
To complicated. I have been very successful with long distance contacts on both 10 and 11 meters (CB) just by using a 102" steel whip, attached to part of a mirror mount bracket, and bolted to the wood fascia at the top of the gable end of my house roof. I then took a piece of 8 gauge wire of the same length, connected it to the mounting bracket, and ran it along the eve. Obviously you have to tune both the 102" whip and the wire to the right length for the band you are using it on. I used 80 watts on a Uniden Washington SSB 11 meter base, got an swr that wouldn't even move the meter, and made several contacts in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and other islands in the South Pacific. Overall, I have had better luck with dipole antennas than anything else.
Yes, you could call it a folded dipole. Half of it vertical, half of it horizontal. But it sure worked great
humid grass connect it to anything unbalanced : un, resistive load is broad possibly...ie 50 ohm broadband resistor.
gOOD VID,TO BUSY ON 80 SO THINK ill go back to the cb days only on 10 meter dx.You have planted the seed for some noise free chat THANKS..
Yes, you can use copper tubing but remember you may need some way to adjust the length. For more information about this antenna please visit my web site at amateurradio.bz
Dave put aluminum tube kit together for 11 meters in a j pole kit they can slide down the top part for 10 meters 1 foot 11 meter antenna 1 foot longer I made one for cb for my brother I made one out of 3/4 inch copper pipe but it to gravey aluminum tuneing not as heave the new hams and those on cb would buy the antenna
Great video explaining how to build a 10m ground plane antenna. Thanks for the info KG0ZZ!
#hamradio
Very interesting work, thanks a lot Dave.
Thanks for the great video Dave. I just might give it a try. 73, Bill - WX4AR
Thanks for this!
Wonderful Dave,always great vids you producing sir...ZS1CPT
Google antenna gain truth table the top result should be a PDF file for such a table. Handy to have when comparing common antenna types to each other
Helpful video . I’m puzzled though , I thought the term “ground plane “ was used to refer to a vertical that has the radials elevated with the antenna above ground several feet .
Dave interesting video, this is a project I have thought about but never tried. Thanks for the info. Jeff AI4XG
I had no idea 10 years ago. I hope you still building. I did want to ask why pvc to hold the antenna rather than aluminum? Hope you get this. Very nice work. KC6ART 73
Thanks Dave, I refreshed and there it was.... ;)
I've added the link to the description. Thanks for watching and 73! :)
thanks Dave verry intresting vid Koenraad
If you wanted to mount the antenna up high the wires for radials probably wouldn't be practical. How could you make something to mount aluminum tube radials?
Can you add a list of items that I will need?
Great Vid Dave, nice work!
I don’t know if you will see this now, but I was hoping you would show how you mounted the coax to the antenna. I missed that and I kinda wanted to see it. I really need a 10 meter antenna as I’m only a tech and I want more than 2m/440. Thank you -73- W1KPS
Holiday I am K1 emw I have a ground mount is vertical I am not impressed with it too awful much I have a bout 20 radios in the ground I would like to lift it up in the air a little bit what is your thought with that if you would drop me a note I would appreciate it thank you seven threes God bless
That's great! Thank you!
Great video brother, glad to see that thare are hams that dont hate CB or think that CB's give hams a bad name, allot of hams were CBers (like me) before they got there tickit and some (like myself) still have them and i carry one in my jump kit. now i need to set one up in the shack. I did want to buy a antenna or do a dipole, but i might. so this project fits GREAT VIDEO BROTHER!
73
KC9PXZ (hope to work you HF somtime)
Good vid Dave but the audio is a bit low on my pc dont know if anyone else is getting you quiet..? take care shane
What will rain, dew and moisture do to the this antenna with the unprotected radiator connection?
Very good again Dave but surely one never uses scrap co/ax.
Great video!!!
Great Video thx for the upload :) greetings
dave, do you have a video of a 11 meters cb quad antenna or plans and diagrams?
Please could you give me the measures in cm, whereas in Portugal only work with cm. if you have a photo to the scheme was better.
I'm thinking about doing this antenna for DX in banda citizen.
Thank'm learning a lot with the material you have here.
One thing that caught my eye was that you didn't give and exciting comment(like you have in previous videos) during the video of how good the SWR was from 26 MHtz all the way to 28.6 MHz. What I got from it was that you were so astonished, quietly, and that was why you went to the Kenwood just to double check if this was true or not. Am I correct on this Dave?
whats is measurement for this antenna sir
Hey thank you for that to interesting i will try it to thanks again
Very good job my friend! de R3IBZ 73
Thank you Dave. I would like to build a 1/2-wave 10m ground plane with tubing. Can the radials still be 1/4 wave? Any matching required between the radiator and the radials? Thanks!
Hi Dave spent hrs watching your vids fantastic and interesting ,,, I was told antennas have to be a certain height above the ground for a given band and this antenna is on the ground ,, I thought they had to be a half wave length above the ground else it wouldn't work very well ,, so could you explain why this is working so good from ground height please many thanks Shane ,,CB operater in the uk England
A quarter wave antenna has a high angle of radiation.
If your using it for local comms it works best elevated esp in hilly terrain and depends on your application and site location\terrain as too how you mount it.
There a good explanation here www.hamuniverse.com/w5alt14wavegroundplanevert.html
Also another note: if your are using a switched mode (isolated)power supply (to run your transceiver) do not ground the ground plane wires to earth (dirt)
It causes SMP to become very noisy and they don't like the DC neg\SO239 (they are commoned up on modern radios)of radio grounded to earth (Frame ground),it creates a earth loop and you'll have a lot of hash created,I have seen this problem and very little information on subject,
I found out this during a research project with isolated ground systems and what was causing the noise problems,grounding the DC neg side to frame ground.
This i is a recent discovery with SMP use and lot of technical books don't explain this or are out of date with current technology,so if your using your cb radio with a Switch mode power supply ensure the ground plane wires are isolated from real ground.
I tried a lot of high end and low end brands in my research.
Im sure this is why lots of operators have had troubles using these SMP in past,if using a standard linear PSU ull be fine to ground wires.
My elevated quarter wave works extremely well 50Watts NFM or SSB can work me +45 miles local easy ( I have done 150 miles line of sight on ssb) and constant and 5,100miles SSB DX sky wave and that in a hilly terrain!
Bandwidth is very good with this design and covers cb and more!
It has no gain,but just add RF power for a bit more umph!
I added a 5 turn RG-213 or RG-58\U coax on 4.25" former (plastic golf hole flag plug) RF choke (www.karinya.net/g3txq/chokes/)at feed point of antenna.
My 3 groundplane wires had insulators on them and cord to position them at right angles.
At 10m high antenna from ground level it works extremely well for base to base or mobile contacts on NFM mode on cb\ham,the ground mounted one tried on Hill tops and that also worked very well too from a semi fixed location.
Mounting system in video is perfectly good,an elevated version is perfectly good,depends on your terrain\location and how you want antenna to be used is all I can say on my experiance with this antenna.
Always enjoy watching these videos very practical!
All the best Rob 73's
good job.
i thank thats very cool man i an joy do that to but i have no time
Does it matter what wire you use for the ground plane?
Hi Dave . I would like to make this but would prob elevate it to around 20feet. what would be the best way to attach full size tubular ground planes?
I been looking for a nice antenna for my friend place. 2 meter and 11 meter mono pole on the ground. would a soda can 12 meter work for all cb frequencies.
Just curious how this would perform with 2 feet of snow on the ground? Any Feedback? KD9BIZ Great Video!
Greg Liebig Probably not well if it touches the base of the vertical. In heavy snow, probably best to raise the offering or dig out :p
Thanks Dave , great vid. KC8CJP
Thinking about something like this to chat up PSAT
@Dave Tadlock - Question ? How would you calculate the radial length if i were to make this and put in air 20feet ? How long would buried radials have to be / Thanks so much for a reply ? 73's
ungrounded vertical antenna - "static electricity collector"
GREAT ANTENNA!!!! NOW WHATS THE DB GAIN ON THIS ANTENNA ECT ECT...?? DO YOU HAVE MESUREMENTS ON THAT AND ALSO CAN YOU USE THICK TUBING IF YOUR IN A HIGH WIND AREA AND PLANNING ON PUTING THE ANTENNA UP HIGH?
THANK YOU DAVE FOR YOUR HARD WORK! "WA1ORP"
Dave I cannot find any help, I aquired a maco 5000 ground plane antenna , it says slide the antenna in to the base unit 6 inches through that white nylon insulator , my question is this ,, ,there is a bolt that holds the arm on to the base unit that has the so-239 or whatever that connector is , Im wondering if that metal bolt goes through that metal arm and through the base unit and through the antenna out the other side with a nut , if so , what is the point in that nylon insulator and how is that not a short?
i love your vids
Hi Dave,
you're a good help and your videos are great.
I have a question about a "J-pole" antenna for FM broadcast.
I have a transmitter of 800 Watts. I purchased a J-Pole antenna for it, but he seem that this types of antenna doesn't have polarities +&- Positive or Neg. can you help me with that, please?because I feel afraid to connected to my Transmitter.
Last but not least Dave, I wanted to ask you about something. I have been taught that any Verticle Antenna cut to a freq with out any tunning coil or tunning array like this one has around a 40ohm or so. And this is why a steal whip can only be tunned no lower then a 1.3 on cb. Is this true? How is your verticle able to have a perfect 1.0 swr877
Hello, I want to make an antenna to operate satellites in the 2-meter band. I'm thinking about building a cross Yagi. Do you have any better suggestions?
Ricardo PU5LRK
This rocks. Keep up the good work.. this will help me out a lot..Kd0qvo
Dave how can you make one of these with db gain
Hi ZED ZED, I enjoy your videos, very informative, thanks, 73,
Joe KC3BXZ
what do you think about build a CHA-250b is possible???
Greetings Dave, is possible to use this type of antenna for 6 mtrs? how did you arrive at the measurements for ten meters? I would like to dothis for six meters as well. thanks for the info, very helpful
Hi Dave I saw all you videos.... I got a question for you copper or aluminum pipe to build antennas... what is the difference? maybe you can show a video about this topic
..... thanks greetings from Chicago...
would like to try your 10 meter vertical would you please tell me what coax you used and was it the same all the way to the turner and how long was the run thanks Bob KB8DRO
Thanks for sharing Dave! How far can you get out on this thing?