Walt, just remember that the hardware is all 3/8 by 24; you can engineer/rig just about antenna at the hardwware store. Also your Jeep is a great mobile test platform.
capacity hat for middle of antenna or top then a whips saw them used different applications,need to see the graph on a ez'nec model, thanks for the video very nice!! Always keep Experimenting!!!
I was waiting for you to mount it atop the mast just below the Hustler coil and see if it lowered the tuned frequency point 🤪 ! (You know, like the Hustler multi band base station verticals 😉.)
I have one of these on my Wilson 2000 trucker with the 10 inch lower shaft, on the tri-mag mount simular to yours. The only real difference is with my mount, it has a SO-239 connector with PL-259 adapter to 3/8th 24 thread. Well as for how it performs? it did lower my SWRs ever so slightly which were very low to start with. and if you are wondering how it performs. it looks cool LOL. I made one of these 15 years ago with 12 inch radials that one seemed to make a bit of a performance difference. but I had it mounted just under the loading coil not at the base of the antenna. In conclusion, again it looked cool. It does make it easier to remove the antenna from off my pick up truck roof when going into the car wash LOL.
Walt, OMG 1:52 gave me a good 10db of gain! What you have there is a gimic, BUT you can use it as a capacitance hat if you can drill it out and mount it to the upper part of the whip. This will lower the resonant frequency quite a bit and may be good to 15M or lower. It does not need to be electrically connected as this is a high impedance point (high voltage) and so it will capacitively couple to the coil. Many thanks for the 1970's flashback. 👍 73 OM
First thought is it can’t help but may minutely hurt. However, it might be interesting to put it out the top of two hustler 54 inch masts as top loading check resonant frequency of the 108 inch masts and then add it to the top and see if the resonant frequency goes down. If it has any effect it would make the antenna longer. As small as it is I would guess you would not see much, but easy to try.
The length of this radials looks better FOR higher frequency bands like GMRS or even LoRA. They should be at least 1/4th the frequency’s “height.” They’re also supposed to angle downwards 45 degrees
I had a 3 radial one in my 11 meter days. Radials were shorter. Had it at the base of a 102" whip on the trunk of my Grand Am. No idea if it did anything but it looks cool. :) It also made unscrewing the whip much easier, when I had to go into a parking garage.
Got one and I use it …Don’t know if it works but looks cool…I have even seen people use two or three of these and build a stackable type antenna with them…
I agree, first reaction is it looks more like a capacitance hat, not sure how much its really doing - but as always I applaud your getting out there and trying it! Yes 10M has been challenging recently, highly variable - turns on and off very rapidly it seems. I've been experimenting with a 5' long copper pipe with a small 3-loop wire capacitance hat on top, similar general size to that piece - rigged vertical with some ground plane radials - got it to tune 10 meters with no further coil or anything, but haven't had a chance to give it a fair test to see if it actually makes contacts or not yet. As usual, whether it actually works is the real test! 73's.
I'm glad you tested this thing. I always wondered about those . If there was a way to actually use it as a ground plane would be interesting. As you already know, your car body is the ground plane. So i wonder how it would work on a pole ? A capacity hat will normally "widen out" the antenna and reduce the "corona effect" at the tip. As you stated, capacity hats are normally at the top of the antenna. But I have a Cushcraft R7 vertical that has a capacity hat at the base. It's an end fed halfwave with a match box or balun/unun. One side goes to the antenna and the other to the capacity hat. Maybe a hole can be made in the middle with a insulator that can make it a true ground plane.
How about a modification to make it a ground plane. Would take a good bit of work, but would be interesting to see how the configuration functions as a ground plain.
Seems it's useful only if the antenna needed a little "MORE" Magnetic coupling to get a good match. I was once tuning a guy's CB antenna and the SWR would just not go below about 2:1. Well making adjustments I forgot to remove the Allen wrench from the top set Screw.....SWR was a 1.2:1. Removed the Allen wrench and SWR shot up to 2.3:1. Soldered the wrench in the set screw and reinstalled on the antenna. SWR was good. 👍👍🤷
I run one on 102 whipp. It does take away 3/4 of motor noise and quiets the static noise. Try it with vehicle on and see. As far as helping it get out father cant say. I can hear locals when others say they cant hear them cause of noise. Try and see i know each set up is diff. 73 Trimman (661) in the Carolinas
Thanks for the video. Looks like it is a cap hat, as you said, but on the wrong end of the antenna. Again, thanks for the video. Always like watching what you are doing. Keep it up. Steve, k7ofg.
Stealth cans. Drag cans behind you at logarithmic lengths and a “Just Married” sprayed on the window. Good for up to 11.7 mph … don’t ask me how I know. For better DX use Italian canned tomato cans. Thank me later. 😂
Hahahah 1:22 I laughed so hard after reading this description 😆😆😆 "We actually don't know how this works but hey, wouldn't you like to pimp your antenna ?" Next level advertising :D
Back in the day I ran a pair of similar devices paired to 4 ft firestik. I can't say I ever noticed a difference in performance. They did look cool though and that totally counts👍 *edit for autocorrect foolishness
👍Thanks for sharing. I don’t think I would describe this as radials because they form part of the active element. It would be interesting to stick this into MMANA-GAL to see what the modelled radiation looks like. Without this, my guess is that it's like connecting a capacitance across the antenna feedpoint which will just make the antenna less efficient??
I ran a smaller version of that back in my CB days. I’m not sure if it did anything or not. A friend of mine, who did some experimentations with antennas, always told me the more metal in the air, the better.
About all I can see it doing is changing a nice pear shaped radiation pattern into a mushroom cloud shape by pushing it further up the antenna and narrowing it's field. Same as the 40cm radials on an 18 foot antenna used to do. Maker's USED to claim it took the antenna from 2.5dBI to 4.5dBI.....but OF COURSE this was totallly unproveable, so no one actually questioned it......antenna theory is great, if you have faith.....for the rest of us, all we have is practical field testing.....
I got a 3 element version here in the uk, my opinion is I agree with you. It’s a gimmick and I’ve been experimenting with it for 3 months now on 11m and ham with no improvement to using the antenna without it.
I think it changes the radiation pattern. If it lowers the angle it helps getting more DX. What I do to test this kind of stuff is message some friends that are over 10k km away and do the test. These small differences you can only feel in DX. For example: they say there's no difference between 1.5 adn 1.0 swr, when you test with someone 15k km away, only then you learn what's the difference. I think this thing changes the radiation pattern, I suspect the pattern becomes NVIS and part of it very low angle. Thus people feel the improvement in local comms, with shorter skips and they start to get some great DX. Middle ranges, like 6 to 12k km, dont perform well. That's my guess 73!
I'd suggest the best way to see if it has any positive or negative results is with Tx and a field strength meter. Under controlled conditions like in clear flat area with 50M clearance all round on the 10M band, this should give meaningful results. But I'll throw in an opinion and say it is a gimmick that looks kinda neat but assuming the antenna is tuned for frequency, will do nothing except possibly shifting the angle of radiation up by a degree or so depending on the antenna length. (The longer the antenna, the smaller the change). 5c worth of opinion 😊
Placed close to the large ground plane of your vehicle, it can't change the pattern much at all. So the "elevation angle" stuff is nonsense. What it can do is form part of an L network.If the 1/4 wave antenna is adjusted a bit long so that it's on the inductive side of resonance, then that inductance and the capacitance to ground of the gadget form an L network which if the values are correct will raise the impedance. The antenna is somewhat below 50 ohms and the L network will bring that value up a bit. People do the same thing by putting a coil from base of antenna to ground and adjusting the antenna to be a bit short. But easier and cheaper, you can make the antenna long and instead of using the gadget, put a real adjustable capacitor between antenna base and ground. You could use a length of coax cable open at the far end to make the capacitor; tune it by trimming the length. To get it right you need the right amount of inductance and the right amount of capacitance. See the L network equations. I wouldn't put the thing at the top of the antenna. Yes, it could be a capacity hat. It would also be a mechanical disaster, with all that mass up at the top of a flimsy whip. David VE7EZM and AF7BZ
Nice video again. Thanks for testing. Wouldn't be WSPR a good way to compare it? Sending 3-4 times without the gimmick and then 3-4 times with it. Just an idea. 73, Stephan, DF6PA
Yes I probably need to start using WSPR in my videos. I’m not sure if that would be as much fun as just firing up the rig and making contacts but definitely more accurate.
another interesting vid & thank u; despite the variation in SWR, I wonder if it somehow benefits the actual angle of radiation🤔I just kept thinking of the "radial kits" offered with IMAX & Antron 99 vertical antennas; yes, CB antennas, but who cares? I just know that my IMAX works fantastic on 10 & 12m (& yes, on 11m SSB, too); I once had a radial kit on it, but not since I pulled it up atop a high tree (by looping support rope over a heavy tree limb, to avoid climbing trees &/or ladders); yet, even with no radials, I've still worked all over the world with it, 73 de WA4ELW in TN 🇺🇸 dit dit 😃
I dunno, Walt, if it looks like a gimmick and acts like a gimmick, then maybe… Back in the ‘80s, I used a stock K-40 with an HTX-100 and worked all kinds of stupid DX with 25 watts. No gimmick there! Keep’em coming! 73, Mike K3CXG who dat!
They do make one that really is on the ground side of the antenna. You need a pl259 style mount. The radiial kit has a pl259 on one side and an so239 on the other.Not the one with 3/8 thread. Does it work? Dont know. Get one of those and try it.
Not an investment I will make but I am fascinated by the use of emf shielding material as a ground plane. Can't think what the wife will make of me asking for some cloth for Christmas :-) 73 M7BLC.
Imagine you have a fiberglass truck antenna mounted with no GP one of these if added up might be something. Your metal vehicle isn't a fair test. Now days they make a whip with a GP built in? Also some make a dipole with another whip under the mirrow mount , so the idea isn't snake oil and also might be better if on 2 meters or 440. Cal with DX Commander, on radials advocates for several even if short, so there you have it.
I'd like to see a test of the 102 inch cb whip, maybe shortened a bit for 10 meters. Will a full length 1/4 wave antenna outperform any of the coil or helical shortened ones?
Are you familiar with Tim, G5TM? He uses one over on his RU-vid channel, and also various other mobile antennas. He sometimes uses it with a coil for lower bands. Have a watch, I'm not sure there are direct comparisons, but you may get some good info.
Hello Walt, I’ve also wondered how they can call it a groundplane when it’s hooked up to the antenna side. I’m just curious if you have any digital noise reduction on? If not you should give it a try, it’ll definitely help pull in some weaker signals. I know how you listen to all of that static. It’s even worse when you use the G90. Look at N4HNH’s videos on the FT-891.
Yes I’ve been tinkering with the DNR. I’m a little hearing impaired with raging tinnitus so I sometimes don’t realize that people watching my videos are kind of hearing things a bit differently than me.
@@COASTALWAVESWIRES yes DNR, DNF (Digital Notch Filter), DRF (Digital Roofing Filter) & the RX EQ can assist in making stations come in clearer and make them “pop” out of that static noise. You can set the tonal quality that would actually be less fatiguing to your ears and help your tinnitus from getting worse.
Hey Walt, try the same experiment with a true Cap-Hat on a stainless steel whip top. The "with versus without" approach seems good to me. Thanks! DE AG4KN
Hi Walt Would you review my patented (pending) antenna oil for me? One wipe increases signals by 1.7 dB and reduces SWR to less than 1:1. The review sample would of course be free but I'll need $50 to cover postage from the UK. Let me know.
Ground "Plane", as in the horizontal plane of the earth/ground - not the same as an electrical ground. A ground plane kit such as this mimics the Earth's plane for an antenna that is installed above the actual ground plane of the earth. Again, nothing to do with the electrical ground.
