[Elecraft] OT - R8 antenna evaluation
I've been following the R8 guying discussion with interest, because I may be in the market for a vertical in the next year or so. While I have read the reviews for the R8 at eHam Forum, I especially trust the experience of the hams here on the K3 list. I presently have a SkyHawk tribander at 60ft. However, an upcoming move to a new home may leave that combination out of the running with some sort of vertical the only option. So, I'm not expecting any vertical to equal the SkyHawk, but I would like to get a general feel for the mechanical quality and general performance of the R8. Thanks in advance. ...robert On 9/6/2014 21:49, Howard Benham wrote: Unless your guy lines are rocket proof it probably won't make much difference. :-) Seriously though, near the top and in the middle work well for me in high wind condition. Howard KG5AON Sent from my iPhone __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to rc...@verizon.net -- Robert G Strickland, PhD ABPH - KE2WY rc...@verizon.net.usa Syracuse, New York, USA __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] OT - R8 antenna evaluation
On Sun,9/7/2014 9:36 AM, Robert G Strickland wrote: So, I'm not expecting any vertical to equal the SkyHawk, but I would like to get a general feel for the mechanical quality and general performance of the R8. Some things to study. One costs a few bucks, the others are free. 1) Buy the report written by N0AX on the testing of verticals that he did with K7LXC. Sold by K7LXC's Champion Radio website. Well worth the money. 2) Study the Power Point slides on my website about Vertical Antenna Mounting Height and Antenna Planning for Small HF Stations. 73, Jim K9YC __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] OT - R8 antenna evaluation
ORIGINAL MESSAGE (may be snipped) On 9/7/2014 9:53 AM, Jim Brown wrote: 2) Study the Power Point slides on my website about Vertical Antenna Mounting Height and Antenna Planning for Small HF Stations. 73, Jim K9YC REPLY: Jim, I went to your website http://www.audiosystemsgroup.com/K9YC/K9YC.htm and could not find the presentation. A google search only turned up broken links. Could you provide a link please? Thank you, 73, Bill W6WRT __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] OT - R8 antenna evaluation
http://audiosystemsgroup.com/VerticalHeight.pdf ORIGINAL MESSAGE (may be snipped) On 9/7/2014 9:53 AM, Jim Brown wrote: 2) Study the Power Point slides on my website about Vertical Antenna Mounting Height and Antenna Planning for Small HF Stations. 73, Jim K9YC REPLY: Jim, I went to your website http://www.audiosystemsgroup.com/K9YC/K9YC.htm and could not find the presentation. A google search only turned up broken links. Could you provide a link please? Thank you, 73, Bill W6WRT __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to k...@flex.com __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] OT - R8 antenna evaluation
We need to be careful on evaluation of verticals that we forget to consider the ground. In the early 60's living in a top floor row house apartment out Connecticut Avenue in Washington, DC, I had an early equivalent of an R8 style multiband vertical. I had a pair of radials each for 40/20/15/10. They were over a copper roof, pretty much in a sea of copper roofs. It was totally gangbusters. Worked all over the globe on 40 thru 10 with 35 watts output from an 807 final. A bit later, moving to the suburbs and a house for impending parenthood, I relocated the same antenna to the southeast corner of the new back yard with the feed just a little above the grass. It was a dummy load, even though now we were running 65 watts from a 6146. The house version had a much better SWR than the row house so I was pretty much bumfuzzled why it wasn't getting out. No good scoop on what was wrong, other than the typical come back from the PVRC club crowd that verticals radiate poorly in all directions. It would be a string of decades before I caught on to what was going on. With verticals, first work out what you are going to do for the counterpoise/ground system and THEN worry about the vertical. The latter may vary you a dB, maybe even approaching 2. The former deals with one, two, maybe three S units. Huge losses are possible with poor ground/counterpoise situations. 73, Guy On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 12:53 PM, Jim Brown j...@audiosystemsgroup.com wrote: On Sun,9/7/2014 9:36 AM, Robert G Strickland wrote: So, I'm not expecting any vertical to equal the SkyHawk, but I would like to get a general feel for the mechanical quality and general performance of the R8. Some things to study. One costs a few bucks, the others are free. 1) Buy the report written by N0AX on the testing of verticals that he did with K7LXC. Sold by K7LXC's Champion Radio website. Well worth the money. 2) Study the Power Point slides on my website about Vertical Antenna Mounting Height and Antenna Planning for Small HF Stations. 73, Jim K9YC __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to k2av@gmail.com __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] OT - R8 antenna evaluation
On Sun,9/7/2014 10:27 AM, Bill Turner wrote: Jim, I went to your website http://www.audiosystemsgroup.com/K9YC/K9YC.htm and could not find the presentation. A google search only turned up broken links. Could you provide a link please? Hmmm. That's a very old link. Try k9yc.com/publish.htm 73, Jim K9YC __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] OT - R8 antenna evaluation
ORIGINAL MESSAGE (may be snipped) On 9/7/2014 10:33 AM, Merv Schweigert wrote: http://audiosystemsgroup.com/VerticalHeight.pdf REPLY: Excellent, thanks. 73, Bill W6WRT __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] OT - R8 antenna evaluation
Hi All, I would like to compliment Jim Brown's analysis regarding verticals and height above ground. Based strictly on personal experience I would agree with just about everything he said, and now I know why!!! Hi. For years I used a Cushcraft R7 vertical, and I soon found that when it was mounted off the ground somewhat it performed much better. Of course, these antennas are compromise antennas, but still you can improve your results with some experimentation. Nothing produced better results for me than elevating the antenna. A number of years ago I purchased a copy of the study Jim refers to which was authored by Ward Silver and Steve Morris. This was published in about 2000, and many of the antennas they analyzed have been replaced or modified somewhat by newer offerings. However, the crux of the info is still very relevant. I think Jim is suggesting that any of these antennas will work better if elevated. Subsequently I acquired a used R8, which is similar to the R7, but an improvement in some ways. It is taller, but still uses much the same matching unit at the base. It also purportedly covers 6 meters, which the R7 does not, but my results there have been marginal. Still, the R8 does seem to perform somewhat better than the R7. In the analysyis by Silver and Morris, I think they more or less conclude that the R8 was the best of the bunch, at least if you only compare the bands each antenna is capable of--some of the tested antennas covered 80 meters, which the R8 does not. My R8, like my R7 previously, is mounted approximately 20 feet off the ground--just above the top of my roofline. The performance is much improved over a simple ground mounted system. Neither the R7 or the R8 produce very stellar results on 40 meters, but they do work, and DXing is possible in decent conditions. Since I favor CW, that helps too. SSB results are not so great, which tells me the antenna is struggling a bit on 40 meters. Not a big surprise! Since then I acquired a used Sigma 40XK, which is a vertical dipole. This is another NB6T design, while he still owned Force12. On 40 meters this antenna works better than my R8, and I have it elevated, but only about 6 feet. Based on Jim's analysis, I think it should be even a good bit higher. I actually would have expected that, but Jim makes it obvious. I also have another N6BT design, the Bravo 7. This is, according to N6BT, also a vertical dipole, but it looks more like an ordinary vertical, with adjustable loading at the base. I heard N6BT make a presentation about these newer designs of his, and he reported very good results. However, I think his results are substantially based on being mounted over salt water! Notice the dramatically improved results in Jim's analysis when mounting over salt water. My own results using this antenna are not all that good, at least not on 40 meters. It does seem to work fairly well on other bands. On a couple of occasions I've had this antenna somewhat higher, and although I don't have measurements to confirm it, the results did seem to be better. So, although my results don't prove much, they do compare favorably to what Jim says. I've tried various antennas, and with the same apparent results--higher is better! Dave W7AQK __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] OT - R8 antenna evaluation
Robert, I have a band by band breakdown of the GAP Challenger at: http://nk7z.net/review-of-the-challenger-dx-antenna-by-gap-antenna/ -- Thanks and 73's, For equipment, and software setups and reviews see: www.nk7z.net for MixW support see; http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/mixw/info for Dopplergram information see: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/dopplergram/info for MM-SSTV see: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MM-SSTV/info On Sun, 2014-09-07 at 16:36 +, Robert G Strickland wrote: I've been following the R8 guying discussion with interest, because I may be in the market for a vertical in the next year or so. While I have read the reviews for the R8 at eHam Forum, I especially trust the experience of the hams here on the K3 list. I presently have a SkyHawk tribander at 60ft. However, an upcoming move to a new home may leave that combination out of the running with some sort of vertical the only option. So, I'm not expecting any vertical to equal the SkyHawk, but I would like to get a general feel for the mechanical quality and general performance of the R8. Thanks in advance. ...robert __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] OT - R8 antenna evaluation
Howard, I have a Hy-Gain AV-620 (20 through 6 meters). Very much the same as the AV-640 (40 through 6) meters. It is mounted about 8 feet off the ground. It's SWR characteristics are excellent on all bands. No tuner required. Performance, however, is not impressive. Were I to be limited to a single vertical, I think any of the various models will get a signal into the air. I particularly liked the GAP Titan. The most important thing is to get it off the ground. 8 to 10 feet at least. Otherwise, go with a regular quarter-wave with ground radials. Typically I find the AV-620 to be one S unit lower than a dipole for a given band. 73, Doug -- K0DXV On 9/7/2014 10:36 AM, Robert G Strickland wrote: I've been following the R8 guying discussion with interest, because I may be in the market for a vertical in the next year or so. While I have read the reviews for the R8 at eHam Forum, I especially trust the experience of the hams here on the K3 list. I presently have a SkyHawk tribander at 60ft. However, an upcoming move to a new home may leave that combination out of the running with some sort of vertical the only option. So, I'm not expecting any vertical to equal the SkyHawk, but I would like to get a general feel for the mechanical quality and general performance of the R8. Thanks in advance. ...robert On 9/6/2014 21:49, Howard Benham wrote: Unless your guy lines are rocket proof it probably won't make much difference. :-) Seriously though, near the top and in the middle work well for me in high wind condition. Howard KG5AON Sent from my iPhone __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to rc...@verizon.net __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
