Broadband Lowband antenna?

[jorenwendschuh]

I've heard rumors about broadband mobile antennas existing for low-band radios, but have yet to find anything that exists beyond a 1 or 2MHz bandwidth. Is there anything available that will allow for a broader bandwidth? I'm trying to cover as much of both edges of low-band as possible and am currently setup with a single x9000 drawer, but will move to a dual drawer radio setup if that is what is required.

Currently all I can find that existed:

-Motorola broadband match kit - for use with their ball mount low-band whips - (but only able to locate the 37-50MHz split) - can this be used with a different antenna? Possibly a base loaded one tuned to the low-band frequency the match is expecting?

-Motorola's instructions for a harness consisting of a UHF Tee and two properly cut 50ohm coax lines to combine two antennas - This would be very narrow banded, just around two frequencies, so it would not work with, say, two broadband match kits?

-Comet's CF-360 (A/B) duplexer - which will split the band in half - up to 30Mhz, and 50+ - Don't know how sharp the filters are as you move INTO the band passed the 30 & 50 MHz boundaries - but this would allow for two broad-banded whips to at least cover the two amateur bands.

http://batboard.batlabs.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=856
-Which covers a 12MHz bandwidth antenna - cannot locate it in their current lineup - also would not stay broadbanded with the UHF Tee and coax?

Looking to cover 10M, 6M & 33.72 as well 47.50. Thoughts?

[escomm]

Looking to cover 10M, 6M & 33.72 as well 47.50. Thoughts?

You want to travel at light speed, too?

[jhooten]

Check with this guy
http://www.bchawkins.com/106m_vertical_ant.html

[AL7OC]

There are assorted military tactical VHF-LO antennas that cover 30~80 MHz. Whenever you get into wideband VHF-LO antennas, you are going to be looking at lots of compromises. http://shakespeare-military.com/vhf.asp Shakespeare, Harris, and several others make these antennas. A very wideband antenna will usually result in low Q, weird radiation angles, and something less than a flat SWR. A 3:1 SWR at various frequencies is possible - the military radios can handle

You may have to knuckle-down and get multiple antennas with an antenna switch, which creates a different set of problems, or maybe you could try a whip with a home brew tuner. Even with a tuner, you're going to have the weird radiation angle problem.

No easy answer on this one. Good luck.

Pierre

[motorola_otaku]

The T-phasing harness will get you going for 6 meters (centered around 52 MHz) and the FM portion of 10, but at the exclusion of your 33 and 47 MHz channels. Or you can cut it for 33 and 47 but lose 6 and 10. Either setup will be broad enough on receive to allow you to listen anywhere in the low band.

As far as a commercially-made wideband lowband antenna goes, this is about as close as you'll get: http://www.talleycom.com/store/product/ ... B-001.html

[jorenwendschuh]

If attempting to do a t-phasing harness or dual 'band' antenna, would it be better to group the two close frequencies together, or to keep them separated? ie 29.5&33.72 on one radio & 47.5&52 on the other? or 29.5&52.5 on one and 33.72 & 47.5 on the other?

How's the efficiency compare between using a broadband match kit and the t-phasing harness, or even an antenna tuner?

Don't mind running two radios - would this cause an issue locally having two rigs stacked within close proximity to each other?

[jhooten]

What about one of the short screwdriver antennas that cover up through 6?
It should receive well enough where ever it is set and use a preset manual tune box with a button programmed for each of the frequency ranges.

[Astro Spectra]

Or an Icom AH4 tuner and a 102 inch CB whip. There are various designs that allow the AH4 to be used with non-Icom radios.

[Will]

The California Highway Patrol had been using Antenex so called wide band base loaded antennas with very poor results.
They are using a SGC tuner and a 60" whip on 39, 42, and 45 mHz in the newer cars. Great results and it does not require operator intervention....

There are other tuners out there in the Ham market.

Bottom line.. the ain't any wide band low band antennas.....

[escomm]

Will, are those the new antennas that CHP purchased about 2 months ago?

ETA: A birdy tells me the old wideband antennas worked better than these new ones.... in fact I understand the installation of the new antennas has been put on hold... take with a grain of salt...!

[Will]

Will, are those the new antennas that CHP purchased about 2 months ago?

I am referring to the low band ball and whip antennas. I do not know what antennas the CHP purchased lately.

I have been thru the low band mobile antenna problems over the last 40 + years. Not much works really good, especially on tow trucks. I probably have tried them all. Even Laird's latest.