There was a post elsewhere about a multiple segment collinear tested at 8, 6, 5 segments. Reported best results from 5 segment. I run a 6 segment with acceptable results
Guess this is the above thread (or should i say blog?. This ab cd guy is really helpfull and tries about every antenna idea thrown to him. Reading the full 22 pages saves lots of trouble… And i see jepolch is improving his coco skills there too Reading your coco & preamp trouble: verify your dongle is not overloaded. They might need a little help. @pault949: thanks! Just like to register what i’m doing, if only to refresh my brain…
/paul
Ow… and i hate cats, expecially our arrogant feline neighbour. King of the neighborhood. But he knows
LOL. Thanks for looking up the link. The filter looks like a Rube-Goldberg device - people usually overlook the fact that however it looks, it works.
thanx again
I just built the ground plane antenna in the attached photos. It replaced my 8-segment collinear in the attic. Looks like I have gained another 75 miles over the collinear antenna in the same location.
The best distance I have seen so far is 195 miles. I have a two story house and the antenna is close to the peak in the attic. I cannot mount it outside so this is my best solution.
I use a ground plane also having tried all the others get 200 miles on average at 25 feet mounted out side using 30 feet sat quality cat 6 75 ohm feed line, as a side line I hate cats also like my wild birds and stink free garden, only good cat is a dead cat
I didn’t think I would ever want to go through building an antenna. But the small (well, and cool) looking design of yours has sparked the RF Technician in me.
Can you post on the build specs and the type of connector(s) needed? I’m going to give is a go.
I’ve built a couple of other antennas since my first one, but this latest one is a keeper. You have probably heard of or seen the “cantenna” from abcd on the PlaneFinder forum. It’s made from a soda/beer/tea can and a little bit of wire. This thing is dead simple to make, tiny, and gets great reception. I have it on a 14 foot high pole, but soon it will go on the peak of the roof. Here’s a link to the instructions with pictures.
Got around to building an coaxial collinear antenna this past Friday as the little antenna that came with the dongle could only capture so much (shown as yellow). The red represents the new antenna without any termination at the top of the antenna and the blue representing the same antenna but terminated with a 75 ohm resistor. Both antennas were located at the same spot, right against a window (indoors) facing east on the 2nd level of a townhouse.
Not bad range, farthest of course being straight east from where I am. Thinking about putting this up in the attic later to see what range I can get and probably get the updated dongle with the R820T2.
I’ll take a pic if you still need it tonight … basically one end of the resistor jammed into the centre making contact with the inner conductor and the other end making contact on the conductive shield. It’s not pretty but it works
I just found this post and wanted to add my experience. I built the antenna from the ARRL article and am having very good results with it. The “about 1/8” and the 4.5" whip dimensions do not seem to be a problem, as this antenna is for receiving only and this puts the sections very near the desired length. The gap works well as an insulator and appears make the elements the proper length. Heat shrink tubing worked great for me to keep everything in position and sealed. If we were using it to transmit, the measurements would be much more critical. I first built a ground plane which was a huge improvement over the little whip antenna included with the dongle. The above mentioned collinear was a giant improvement over the ground plane. I used RG-6 cable which I had laying around, along with thin wall PVC pipe for the enclosure. It is mounted above some other antennas on my roof top, about 30 feet above ground. I’m using 100 FT of RG-6 for the feed line, as it was already run to the roof, and an old satellite amplifier from the junk box to compensate for the long feed line loss. My location is totally surrounded by much taller trees and I still see aircraft 200+ miles out. I think these results about as good as I can expect considering the trees, although I haven’t built the other collinear designs to compare.
Maybe I’m a little biased, but please don’t bash an article about an antenna if you have not tried it. The ARRL guys were building radios and antennas way before ADS-B or even digital communications came along. I played with digital satellite communications many years ago, regularly passed messages to the amateur radio/computer equipment on the old MIR space station and sometimes talked with the crew. I won’t even mention all the amateur communication satellites we had and still have in orbit. Unfortunately. I haven’t been very active with that lately.
Hello, I have a question about this antenna you made. # 1 the antenna looks great. Is that copper wire like 16/2? It kind of looks like it. Lastly what is the wire length of each piece. Thanks. Great work.
Reading your coco & preamp trouble: verify your dongle is not overloaded. They might need a little help.
