[50mhz] Good gain verticals?

[Ray Brown]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "J. Coote" <TSCM at jps.net>

> I am considering a gain vertical antenna for 50-54 MHz for a small suburban
> lot.  I am limited to one "clean looking" vertical antenna for FM work and
> SSB/CW for this band.
> The Hygain V6 looks OK, with about 21 feet length, two 5/8 sections,
> decoupling radials and claims 3dbD gain.  The Diamond antenna looked similar
> in design, but narrower bandwidth and a "claim" of 6dB (over something).  I
> don't have the time to build homebrew.
>
> Anything else in commercial 6M gain vertical antennas?  Comments?

  Well, one method would be to make your own 6m j-pole. I have the plans
for that if you're interested, I made 2 for others and one for me a few years
ago, and it's adequate. It was cheap, until the price of copper trippled. :-(

  There's one that I've been strongly considering, as I run a split-site 6m
repeater here in EM27 @ 53.250 -1.7 (shameless plug), but I can't come
up with the funding. I'm currently running 2 1/4 wave ground plane antennas
on the system (beside the UHF link) which are adequate, but I wish I had
one or two of these guys...

  Good ol' eBay and HIGH GAIN 5/8 WAVE 6 METER 50 MHZ REPEATER
ANTENNA, NorwalkElectronics, will find what I'm describing. They want
$189 per antenna, with free shipping from CT, and altho the performance
figures aren't quite as robust as the Hygain or Diamond, this guy looks very
rugged and solid, where wind and ice should not be a problem with it at all.
And he's posted 3 testimonials from other hams on the eBay site, and he does
state a less than 2:1 VSWR over the whole band, so I'd say this might be
what you're looking for. :-)

  I have no association with them, just a wanna-be customer. :-)

  Hmmm... I wonder if I could get Norwalk to consider making me a dual
5/8 wave...:-)


                _Ray_        KBØSTN