[Antennas] Mobile Antennas - which shoots best, is strongest?

Sat Jun 17 08:27:36 EDT 2006

Hello Bill,
That's the one we had, Bill. The feed point was via what looked like a 
"high voltage wire" about two feet from the bottom that goes into the centre 
of the vertical. The only shock to me what that ours were 35 feet and I 
always wanted them to be 33 feet to make them better on 40 meters! Of 
course we worked mostly 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 22 and 25 MHz on HF. They 
worked best on the 6 to 12 MHz range. We had a 400 foot long inverted L 
antenna for MF (500 kHz) that worked very very well on the higher bands as 
it was inline with the ship's direction and the stations we needed to QSO 
were in that direction (or reverse)!
On 160 meters, I used to work F8OB from near HC8 - he always wanted to work 
KH6 and that night I was called by Jack KH6CC - I could hear them both - 
Jack and his good ears could just hear F8OB but conditions in France weren't 
as quiet. Almost only counts with horseshoes and handgrenades.
Great antenna, you didn't mention if you presurized the ATU with nitrogen. 
We found that necessary to keep the gremlins out of the box and to minimize 
any arcing inside from tuning faults.
73
David N1EA
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dr. William J. Schmidt, II" <bill at wjschmidt.com>
To: "David J. Ring, Jr." <n1ea at arrl.net>; <Antennas at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, June 16, 2006 11:30 PM
Subject: Re: [Antennas] Mobile Antennas - which shoots best, is strongest?
Name is Bill.
The Shakespeare vertical I have is not that current 222 boat vertical, but
rather the mil. one they built for the Navy that bolts to the decks of
ships. It comes in two sections, tapers from 1 inch at the top to 5 inches
at the base, has a four bolt flange at the bottom that is about 10 inches in
diameter. The feed point is about 24 inches up from the flange, it has
twelve wires running up the inside of the fiberglass structure, and will
handle 10 kW. Weighs about 80 pounds. It will handle two 3x4 flags nicely.
The tuner is right at the base of the antenna...mounted on the concrete...
and the feed wire is about 24 inches long #6 solid copper wire. The tuner
is covered by bushes and is fed with 7/8" heliax that is out about 70 feet
from the house. There are two ground rods (one for the vertical and one for
the tuner), and the radial counterpoise of #6 wire in a 6 foot diameter
circle that the radials connect to at the base. there are 225 #12 radials
connected to the counterpoise that were buried in my yard using my patented
radial burying device.
I suppose we all could devise other stealth antennas that work better...but
I have not seen one yet.
I have a good story to go with this: While I was burying the radials for
the antenna... my neighbor came out and asked why I was burying wire in my
yard. We have moles here so I said "well, its to keep the moles out of my
yard!"... to which he promptly said "well, when you finish... can you put
some down in my yard too?!!!!!".... so I just extended my radials into his
yard!
Sincerely,
Dr. William J. Schmidt, II K9HZ
Trustee of the North American QRO - Central Division Club - K9ZC