[OZAPRS] OT: what to use for Antenna Tip?

[Richard Hoskin]

HI Damien,

 

Yep the tower is still there probably in the same place.

 

Cheers

Richard

 

 

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From: ozaprs-bounces at aprs.net.au [mailto:ozaprs-bounces at aprs.net.au] On
Behalf Of Damien Gardner Jnr
Sent: Wednesday, 28 July 2010 11:01 AM
To: Australian APRS Users
Subject: Re: [OZAPRS] OT: what to use for Antenna Tip?

 

Oooh! Good idea!  I'd completely forgotten about those :)

 

I used to make UHF CB Yagi's out of them :)   Hrrm, the good old days -
working Burnie Ch8 repeater with 9 co-phased 14-element beams, driven by the
whopping 3.7W output of my old FM620, from home in Kyneton :)  It's a good
thing I had a ham next door, or I would have driven the neighbours nuts with
the weird things that used to pop up on my tower!   Hrrm, I wonder if my old
tower is still sitting over the fence where it got thrown after I shifted
out?  Colin? :)

 

--DG

 

 

On 28/07/2010, at 10:37 AM, Terry Neumann wrote:







I've found stainless steel whip material almost impossible to source in
Adelaide.    If you do find it, they invariably have a minimum order value
of *here insert suitably outrageous figure* ($100 was seriously stated by
one crowd).

Consequently I use 3.2 mm Nickel Bronze gas welding rod as the tuning spike
for my whips, both home brew, and also in a couple on instances to pull
commercial whips down to a lower frequency.  This size was spot on for my
Mobile One whips.  I've successfully dragged a 20 metre whip down to 30
metres doing this and also fiddled amateur whips onto RFDS slots when there
was a need to do so.

Nickel Bronze is quite weather resistant, and has sufficient spring in it to
hold its straightness under normal road speeds. The stuff I use was from CIG
and was packaged in a plastic tube with 8 rods, each 750 mm long. (It was a
very long time ago, but is still a current stock item)  I have no idea what
the cost would be today.  Try any welding supplies place - they should have
them, or better still try and scrounge a single rod from a local welding
outfit if you can.

73,
Terry
VK5ATN



Damien Gardner Jnr wrote: 

Hi Folks, 

 

I have a mobileone 30m whip on the car for HF APRS - it's a bloody great
little (well, not so little :-p) antenna, but I'm having hell getting a
replacement tip for it..  M1 have been nice enough to send me a couple of
replacements, but one was too short, and the other, the envelope arrived
without the tip! (actually the envelope arrived without the tip inside on
the first one too, but the envelope and tip were in an Auspost envelope..
this latest one, there was just no tip in either envelope!)  Seems Auspost
don't have any testing of envelopes before they go into the sorting
machines, to see if they'll actually BEND..which is a bit bizarre.. - I've
shipped THOUSANDS of LED's simply in an envelope with a sheet of thin card
either side, and never had a complaint from customers..

 

So anyway.. - I really don't want to hassle M1 any more.. - they don't seem
to want to tell me what the tip is (i.e. what type of steel, what diameter),
so wondering if anyone else has had to replace the tip on their M1 whip
themselves, and happens to know what I'm asking metaland to order in for me?

 

Cheers,

 

Damien

 

Damien Gardner Jnr
VK2TDG. Dip EE. GradIEAust
rendrag at rendrag.net -  http://www.rendrag.net/
--
We rode on the winds of the rising storm,
 We ran to the sounds of thunder.
We danced among the lightning bolts,
 and tore the world asunder

 






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