Had some issues with 8 Coco antenna I think and so yesterday I replaced with a new I built. Deaf. 1/2 the planes, 1/2 the distance. SO I carefully
built another today and put it up. Vast improvement. Dissected it and couldn’t find anything. Think maybe I pooched the connection.
the old one i took down had a broken wire in the top element so thats why I dropped a a tad. Hopefully this new one will get me back to where
I was
So be very very careful when building these things,they are picky 
DIY CoCo making is a SHOT IN DARK…mostly missed, occassionaly hit…sigh!!!
Hi Folks,
I’ve got a homebrew 10 element CoCo that is working ok, hit/miss range of about 300nm - and around 1450 messages/second as I type this.
I built it as I was new to the hobby and had some satellite cable about that fitted the bill - didn’t want to spend much in case i didn’t get ‘the bug!’ Now i do have the bug, would you guys recommend upgrading to the Flight Aware branded antenna ??
Thanks
Greg
@GergMcHairy
YES, I strongly recommend FA 26 inch Antenna.
I use Flightaware’s 26" Antenna, and am very satisfied with it.
However since I live in an urban area with lot of cell phone as well as UHF TV signals, the FA Antenna picked these signals also and overloaded the DVB-T & ProStick. As a result, FA Antenna’s performance was worst than my DIY Cantenna. Initially I thought it was due to bad N-connector, but even after trying several different makes of N-connectors/pigtails, the situation did not improve.
Finally the problem was solved when I installed FA Filter, after which its performance became much better than Cantenna.
Filter is not needed at all locations. It depends on the level of RF signals in the area. You may or may not need a filter at your location. Try FA Antenna first without filter. If results are poor or unsatisfactory, then purchase and install the Filter.
Thanks abcd567, much appreciated.
I’ll have to get on with it now !!
Cheers !
Greg
Ive built them for 144 and 440mhz ham radio, careful calculation and cutting makes for a very good antenna. Very happy with mine.
Im running 150mi plus with mine and considering Im surrounded by mountains in the puget sound its very good, and Im not sure the FA would improve things
that much
CoCo is very good if your careful.
I would like to try the FA antenna, but that would necessitate me putting out a lot of cash for antenna, coax and adapter, that as a retiree that the wife is the banker for
just isn’t there, I had the PVC pipe, 2x2 that I mounted it on and the heavy RG6 in the garage.
w7psk, You were right - i should have thought about it more before splashing unnecessary cash!
I replaced the CoCo with the FA antenna at the weekend and my stats dropped… After a couple of days tweaking the gain I’m just about back to where I was… So I must have done a better job with my CoCo than I expected !!
http://wildlifemum.macaree.com/adsbmap.png
I’ll leave it alone for a few days and see how my stats settle down.
Cheers !
Greg
I’d like to try and duplicate your success. What did you use as a velocity factor for your cable? (Or just dimensions from each section. )
I used the guide at https://www.balarad.net for my build, but with the following notes:
To get the sections to join was a right pain (using wf100 cable), so I reduced the length that I inserted into the next section to 20mm.
They still gave me grief due to the lack of flex in the sheath, warming the pre-chopped coax in the oven (lowest setting for just a couple of minutes) making far more pliable for just long enough to get it together!
Good Luck & hope you have the enjoyment & satisfaction I did!
Greg
thanks! I was thinking of rounding off the end of the center connector so it doesn’t snag on insertion. Now to go see where I left that roll of RG6 !!
I use a black & decker hot air paint stripper gun to warm the 6mm tubes used in my garden irrigation system when pushing pipe on or pulling off Tee connectors etc.
Out of curiousity, does the WF100 cable have a solid copper center wire or copper clad steel?
I used an ice pick to make a channel into the sheath with good results.