Comet H422 4 band rotary dipole Easy Question: Are they any good considering the price. I'm having planing issues and they state that these work 3 Metres from ground level.
Re: Comet H422 4 band rotary dipole If set up in the V config shown in the picture I can believe you could make it work 3M off the ground, if you se it up horizontal I think it would need to be higher up.
Never tried one, but I guess it should work the same as any other trapped dipole...
Re: Comet H422 4 band rotary dipole Hello NumbNut,
Any dipole should work 3 meters off the ground including homemade wire one's which would cost a lot less, the antenna would operate like an NVIS antenna which radiates the signal almost straight up and down again within a few hundred miles or more at them heights.
I think a better investment would be a good antenna tuning unit that you can attach any type of wire ariel too, I know personally many stations that use very low wire antennas including G5RVs around 8ft off the ground concelead around fences etc and they have perfectly adequate signals out and about and at a fraction of the cost of the Comet antennas in the link.
£228.99 is a lot of money for an antenna that is a trapped dipole. Wire antennas are a lot less visible too, if money is not an option though go for it - and you could always use it as a giant catapult to pelt the neighbours who are causing you agro about needing the planning permission!
Re: Comet H422 4 band rotary dipole two 7m fishing rods in a "V" with 21 metres of copper wire running up them and accross the top (like a triangle) fed at the bottom with a 4;1 balun..... equals a multiband deltaloop......better than any trapped dipole any day and about £50 to make..bargain
Re: Comet H422 4 band rotary dipole Hi there,
I've one of those mentioned in the above post to test, it has two 7m aluminium sections (much like those off a GP 5/8 wave CB antenna), they are attached to a bread board at the bottom and when extended they are a V shape, at the top is a piece of wire horizontally connecting the top of the two 7m sections making a delta loop, as FB010 has mentioned there is a 4:1 balun at the bottom which should make it work from 13MHz up, I might actually try feeding it directly with open line like the 450ohm stuff to a tuner, I would be interested to see what performs the best for multiband use, the coax/balun/tuner or the ladderline/tuner.
When I get some time I will remove my vertical antenna (Imax 2000)and try this one in it's place, I would assume there is some directional property's to these if they are rotated East to West or North to South?
Anycase I will post my findings soon with some photos too.
Re: Comet H422 4 band rotary dipole yes, they are slightly directional, front and back in equal proportions (nothing off the sides).the one we made has low SWR from 6mhz to 30 without a tuner!!
i dont think i will ever buy a commercial antenna again, i just knocked up 2 145mhz slim jims in 5 minutes out of some 300ohm ribbon feedline, they actually blow the socks off my £60 co-linear?? and cost 50p
