Hi Walt great video as always. In regard W1GV I wanted to say that watching his videos was a source of knowledge and inspiration for me. Stan was a great mentore for many people and should always be remembered. We all miss him. Ciao de N6LDM
Great video, Walt! A lot of fun. The co-phased antennas on the 18 wheelers was more about getting a signal around both sides of that big box they were pulling. With a single whip, half of the signal was blocked behind them.
Sunday evening 20m from the UK was strangled by the geomag disturbance. I worked some east coast big guns on 20m in the contest, and that was all. Very good proof of how the co-phasing works!
I had a buddy of mine back in the 90s build a co-phased array on his car.. only he had 1 102 inch whip on the back and one in the front, the front one stuck way out infront of the car, he built a mount for it out of old bed frames LOL! He also made some wacky match box to where he could change if it was directional off the front or the sides.. It looked absolutely ridiculous heheh. 73!
This reminds me of when I made a Bobtail Curtain for 17M.... 3 phased verticals! That was a lot of fun working grey line propagation. Really low angle of radiation!
Nice set up. You can't get any better ground plane than the ocean!! I've done that before too with one HF vertical only a few feet out of the water. Around the world it went. Croatia, Barbados, Italy, Slovenia? NIICEEE.
I think base on the phase it tends to radiate as a repellent from each other . It would be a great idea to have those antennas in a sort of circular Fairy platform 🏟️that rotates and see if it you can use it as a Directional . Because of the radiation side to side .
Thanks Walt for all you antenna work. New ham here, General in Feb studying for extra now, and these videos are a GREAT help. Also many thanks for the link to Stan Gibilisco's site. He's new to me and looking over his TH-cam videos it looks to be a great resource. That's another benefit of your site, references to others of interest in this hobby.
I played all weekend answering contest calls DX. What a blast. It wasn't until Noon Saturday that I realized that I was only on 5 watts. So I was QRP the whole morning. Had to go back and change my logs LOL... It was a pleasure to do so.
I did this with 2 efhw's cut for 20m out in my yard. Used 50 ohm coax and a tuner, did not have 75 ohm at the time. still worked pretty good. want to redo it (was temporary set up) with 75 ohm phasing harness now that I have some good 75 ohm to use.
I watch W1GV videos and was intrigued by the 1/2 wave spacing video he did for 40 meters. I have a 40 meter rotatable dipole that would be suited for this, if I separated it into 1/4 wave pieces. End fire would be an option too. Relay switching? Hmmm. Retired here so lots of time to figure this out. Hope to meet you on the air one day Salty Walt. 73!
Walt great experiment - you pattern on 20 at a 1/4wave co phased is egg shaped, long axis is perpendicular (broadside to the antennas). in modeling the long axis should be about 2dB better than the off the side in parallel with the two antennas. the max gain point is about 30degs above the horizon. Great stuff there. At 10meters and 1/2w, your pattern is through the center with about 16dB gain over the side nulls at 25degs and 60dB better over the side nulls at 5degs. Your broadside gain at 5degs is -3.1dBi about 2.5 dB better than a single vertical at the point.
I modeled for fun two same verticals length 5.15 meter both. Distance between the two 1.9 meters. At source i put W1B 90 degrees and W2B 0 degrees. Doesn't work.. Did i do it wrong?
@@48pluto the distance between the 2 should be 1/4 wave on 20m... so about 5.2 meters and both are fed in phase degree change. W1B and W2B no phase angle.
@@FromthehamshackwithNJ4Z Ah i see. Stupid me... Changed the distance to 5.2 meters and now the SWR is good. Gain 2.2DB at 28 degrees. I kept the phasing angle of 90 degrees because both antenna's are the same length.
@@48pluto leaving the 90degs in will send the pattern in one direction (end-fire). The co-phase (feeding both in phase) will bring the antenna pattern broadside. Cool stuff for sure
@@FromthehamshackwithNJ4Z DXcommander (youtube) has lately made some video's about it. Interesting stuff. If you haven't seen those yet you might look them up. Thanks for your help!
Nice experiment Walt! I have helped setup and play with a couple of four square antennas. One for 40M and one for 20M. There is a lot going on when you use those type of antennas. 73
I did it a few times, but did some portable work with a half-square for 20M. Used a tree branch for one leg and a fishing pole for the other. Speaker wire. each end 1ft or so off the ground. Fed at the top corner. 5W QRP. pointing west coast and Europe. One of the italian stations I was working didn't believe the signal from 5W. Nulled out the N-S (I could barely hear people calling me). The setup time is the most annoying part but for something like field day or a long POTA activation for a particular band hard to beat the simplicity and gain
that was fun. we did this a lot in the early 1980's on CB. that co phasing harness gets you back to 50 ohm. can be done with a 2:1 splitter/combiner. I know DX commander and a few friends been co phasing DX commanders together . and figured out multi band part. I have seen 3 and 4 antenna's phased . Callum is working on that as well. changing length of 75 ohm changes the phasing and changed pattern to antenna RF field. adding or taking away delay. also called delay lines. how AM radio stations work with more than 1 tower. normally 4 and they go into a phaser which is made up of delay lines and caps for tunning. this changes the pattern the station radiates out of. how they steer signal to. a outher trick you can do is parasitic array. only 1 antenna driven and tuned. one slightly larger and that all ground. that becomes reflector . move it around to steer your signal. and you can even do a shorter one in opposite direction. that becomes a di reactor . you now have a 3 element beam. lots of fun you can have with more than 1 antenna . 73's
Have not tried co-phasing antennas in years. Was going to set up a quad once, had everything I needed to set it up for 40 meters. But life took me elsewhere. Now I live in an and apt and it is not possible. But I might just play with it when the weather gets better in the spring.
My friend from Dubrovnik, Croatia was watching this with me and got excited when you made contact to Croatia. I have been curious how co phasing antennas like that would work. Much Thanks, KO4HPC 73
Walt, I'm up the road in VB and think it's funny you had a few Croatia contacts. I felt like there was a dedicated lane for RF between here and there in particular. who knows
I was amused at all the contesters on the bands Sunday night. Decided to call out to one and in the end logged stations from Europe, Africa, Caribbean, South America and even Japan. I noticed that I didn’t have any N European stations either. I’ll have to look into that phased antenna design. Thanks for the video.
I can see this would work well out in the open. I tried co-phased 20m verticals in my yard, both ground mounted and raised as ground planes with radials, and I think with all the obstructions…house, carport, fence, etc….I didn’t see any improvement over a single vertical higher up. But that’s why we “play”, to learn 🤪👍! 73 de Dan WD4DB
Walt, now you are going to make me go out and buy another Wolf River 17.5 ' whip. Maybe I will buy 2 of the co phase kits and join the phasing lines with couplers to extend them for 20 meters at a half wave distance. 😅 N1XXU
I am a new ham. I got my license in Jan this year. Your videos are great! I enjoy watching you experiment with new stuff. As a fellow Virginian, and Jeeper I hope to see you on the radio! 73's! KQ4NEI
Ok... here's a history lesson... Hy-Gain sold a little box called a Co-Phaser in the early 1960s. Paired with a pair of CLR2 base station antennas the box enabled the operator to have a number of directional patterns. Fast-forward to 1973... As truckers began to flock to the CB band, they quickly learned that the aluminum box trailers really killed the signal. New-tronics Hustler introduced the Twin Trucker series of center-loaded mirror mount antennas. Hy-Gain had been selling co-phased gutter clamps and trunk lip mounts for years and adapting them to trucks was easy. They sold like crazy, and soon practically every OTR "big rig" sported the white "cattail" antennas. What they did was to create a "figure eight" radiation pattern that concentrated the RF in the direction of travel. I had them on my 1967 Ford F100 and can vouch for their abilities to get reliable 40 miles in either direction with a standard mobile radio. Fast forward... I was doing field service in the 1980s and had a Kenwood TM-2550 in my Rabbit. In a quest for more range I mounted two Hustler CG-144 colinear antennas on the rear bumper. The older hams ragged me about having a "CB setup" but they quickly noticed the lack of mobile signal flutter and the fact that I could routinely be full quieting into the repeater in Pittsburgh from Mount Storm power station, 120 miles away. It was directional to the front of the car, roughly equivalent to a five element Yagi. If you mount the antennas an odd multiple of a quarter wavelength the effects of fading are drastically reduced. When one antenna is at minimum the other one is at maximum. Hy-Gain expanded the co-phasing concept to their Yagi line, selling co-phased three, four, and five element arrays. Google the old Henshaws catalogs. They were big! They were heavy! They were expensive! But, they worked great!
@@COASTALWAVESWIRES My first antenna was the legendary Cushcraft Trik-Stik. Mounted on the same pipe as our TV antenna, it worked very well... and interfered massively with the TV!
@@COASTALWAVESWIRES I'm going through the old S-9 magazines and the earliest Hy-Gain ad featuring co-phased Colinear base antennas appears in the May 1963 issue. More history... there's a video on my channel. Everyone knows about the "new" Super Penetrator. When it was first introduced in 1972 it was called "the Penetrator", or "Super CLR". What's a CLR, you ask? From the early 1960s to 1964, Hy-Gain sold the OG Colinear base station antenna. It was rated at 3.86 dB over a ground plane. It had a 20' vertical element and either three or four radials. It was replaced by the famous CLR2, a 19"10' vertical with three radials, a "solid state" printed circuit matching board, and a vastly improved mounting bracket. Unfortunately, the matching system was incapable of handling power above 300 watts, but the Penetrator returned to the hairpin matching system of the OG Colinear and it is rated for 1500 watts.
Awesome Walt! Always wanted to do a set of co-phased verticals myself. And thanks for mentioning Stan w1gv I’ve enjoyed his videos on antenna building, and his knowledge that he shared with everyone may he RIP. Great video
Brilliant...thanks Walt..John..G4EIJ Just an afterthought, Walt..With this setup, it might be interesting to put out a ‘test’ call in CW, and see what sort of response you get from the RBN..It might give you a better indication of any directional properties.. Just an idea..Cheers..
Interesting Walt. I'm in WA and had an OCF dipole in a tree with the legs facing east/west and on Sunday during the DX contest, all my contacts were in the Carribean. Not sure why. Cuba, Aruba, Virgin Islands, Barbados, etc...
Good to know about 20m. I remember cophased CB antennas from the 1970's but never thought you could use the same harness on 20m. I expect, with slight adjustment, there will be similar results with 12m and 17m.
You could build a phase box and change direction with just a twist of the dial. There should be a video or two out there. Also a 4 squared array should be financially feasible for most hams at 10 or 20 meters.
Someone below mentions the same but I too remember the co-phased antennas during the 70's cb fad and hearing about an antenna switch rigged up to the array to change the phase of the lobs to the sides if needed. Can't remember the details or if it even worked - long time ago.
If you root through the many 1960s CB radio magazines on the World Radio and TV history site you will find a variety of very interesting antenna designs that were meant to be built by experimenters.
Very interesting, Walt. I ran phased verticals years ago on 15 meters from CT to the UK. Tried the bidirectional half-wave spacing, good, but settled kn end-fire arrays with a cartiod pattern. Just before moving back to W2, actually made a rotatable vertical array for 15 with a wooden base on casters. It worked very well, but portable? Not so much. Got my ideas from 73 Magazine i the late 1970's and early 1980's. Gotta try it again, no? De WB2VUO
Interesting experiment with very good results. You didn't say... but for 20 did you co-phase the coax for 20. IF not it would be interesting to redo it and see if there is anything different in performance. It would be interesting to see what your gain was. Thanks for the test.
Semi trucks have got the twin antennas like this. I still say single antenna is better. It seems like I had more positive results with just a single then the co-pays but for the frequency 27 MHz they really need to be 9 feet apart that's just not possible so that probably restricts them a little.
I co-phases out of my office here in midtown Manhattan. Im on the 22nd floor next to the Flat Iron Bldg. One Wilson 2000 on the north west corner balcony & one Wilson 2000 on my west balcony. This has given me 360 degrees of radio exposure. And maybe better propagation east west.?
No I mean the calculator. For calculating lengths of the primary element at different levels like quarter wave or half wave. When you show it it says Antenna Tool at the top.@@COASTALWAVESWIRES
Cool experiment! I used to run dual whips on my pick up way back when because... why not? It's been a minute since I have looked at phasing. If you feed 1 leg 90 degrees out of phase, doesn't that change the direction to along the same plane?
Hey Walt great video as always! Do you know if it would be possible to cophase 2 loop antennas together with one turned 90 degrees to the other to get 360 coverage?
How about setting it up as a 2 ele Beam. So instead of using the harness. Have one element as your tuned 20m antenna and the second as your reflector(or driven) have the second element grounded to the first. almost like a 2 ele beam but half. oneside.
Great Video! What I never understand about doing this is, okay, two quarter wave verticals, and half a wave length apart. With phasing. Okay. So far so good. And 1/4 wave radials under both. Again? So far, so good.. but do you attach the closest 1/4 wave radials TO each other? Then? Isn't this just an upside down half square? All the Best! Finally, as far as the Truckers go, how can they phase antennas that are not going to be 5.5 metres apart to make the half wave, as that would be wider than the cab? 73 DE W8LV BILL
Thanks Bill! I don’t think the truckers got them completely a half wave apart but were more in the situation I was with 20 in an oval pattern with a little more gain forward. Sharing the ground plane this is similar to a half square for sure
When I was a kid there was a guy who was from Arkansas and went by Razorback. He had two 102" stainless steel whips mounted 102" apart on the roof of the Corvair van he drove. With a Lafayette HA-250 linear he was a flamethrower! While the setup might have worked well in Arkansas, in Pittsburgh the antennas kept striking obstructions and one day he came in contact with the overhead streetcar power lines.
Hi Walt, During the last POTA activation I used moxon on 10m and it worked fantastic. I wonder if this set is better than Moxon and if so, by how much.
Hi Walt, Great experiment! Sorry for the off topic question but what Li Fe Po battery are you using for your portable ops? I decided recently to get back on HF for more than just Field Day; purchased a G90. I'll want to purchase a charger as well the battery. Are there any stores here in the HR area that sell these that you know? 73 de KC4JGC.
Thanks! This is the exact battery I use with my G90. I’ve used it for 2 years and it will last all day with moderate use out portable. LifePo4 6aH, cheap and comes with its own charger. From Amazon and it’s a one day thing: a.co/d/0iSVpTF
Came home from Columbus OH last night; found the battery at my door. I was surprised how small the G90 really is; the battery is about half the size I expected! Color me shocked!
Wouldn't have been a more practical test if you had switched directions east to west on the same band 10 meters then if you picked up Europe it would show they was working easy to west.
I miss Stan’s mentoring. Learned so much from his channel.
Me too!
Hi Walt great video as always. In regard W1GV I wanted to say that watching his videos was a source of knowledge and inspiration for me. Stan was a great mentore for many people and should always be remembered. We all miss him. Ciao de N6LDM
Thanks! Stan was a gem!
Love Stan Gibilisco! He is a genius - thanks for reminding all of us about his voluminous contributions to ham radio
He is a genius!
I learned a lot from Stan.
This is a perfect example of the "FUN FACTOR" of the hobby!!! Great Job Buddy!
Yeah, us geeks live for this stuff.
Thanks buddy! This was a fun one
In the 70 i used to talk to truckers with just 10watts in the height of the solar cycle, those twin truckers antennas worked well
Great video Walt!
Thank you! 73, Walt
Great video, Walt! A lot of fun. The co-phased antennas on the 18 wheelers was more about getting a signal around both sides of that big box they were pulling. With a single whip, half of the signal was blocked behind them.
Thanks! Roger that
Sunday evening 20m from the UK was strangled by the geomag disturbance. I worked some east coast big guns on 20m in the contest, and that was all. Very good proof of how the co-phasing works!
Thanks Stuart, I had fun with this one
I had a buddy of mine back in the 90s build a co-phased array on his car.. only he had 1 102 inch whip on the back and one in the front, the front one stuck way out infront of the car, he built a mount for it out of old bed frames LOL! He also made some wacky match box to where he could change if it was directional off the front or the sides.. It looked absolutely ridiculous heheh. 73!
Now that’s experimenting at its best lol
Yeap, Stan was great on helping people to understand
My hat is off to you, thank you for mentioning Stan! whiskey one good vibrations!
Thank you! Stan was awesome
Good video, Walt. Stan’s channel is terrific. His many books are worth finding! He was at ARRL HQ at one point. 73 de K4FMH
Thank you! Yes he was and is a gem
This is great Walt. So good to see you using phased antennas. Keep going!
Thanks! That was fun
This reminds me of when I made a Bobtail Curtain for 17M.... 3 phased verticals! That was a lot of fun working grey line propagation. Really low angle of radiation!
Nice set up. You can't get any better ground plane than the ocean!! I've done that before too with one HF vertical only a few feet out of the water. Around the world it went.
Croatia, Barbados, Italy, Slovenia? NIICEEE.
I think base on the phase it tends to radiate as a repellent from each other . It would be a great idea to have those antennas in a sort of circular Fairy platform 🏟️that rotates and see if it you can use it as a Directional . Because of the radiation side to side .
Great video and great results, thanks 😊
Thank you! 73
Thanks Walt for all you antenna work. New ham here, General in Feb studying for extra now, and these videos are a GREAT help. Also many thanks for the link to Stan Gibilisco's site. He's new to me and looking over his TH-cam videos it looks to be a great resource. That's another benefit of your site, references to others of interest in this hobby.
Thanks and good luck on the Extra!!! 73, Walt
I played all weekend answering contest calls DX. What a blast. It wasn't until Noon Saturday that I realized that I was only on 5 watts. So I was QRP the whole morning. Had to go back and change my logs LOL... It was a pleasure to do so.
It was a great weekend for QRP
I played the contest. Had a blast... Yaseu 5000.... Hex beam 200 watts... 550 qsos... 94 countries
That's why I keep telling the rookies that 10 meters is the true magic band! Simply put, you get the most bang for the buck when 10 is open.
Thanks for the tip on Stan's channel. Lots to dig into.
He’s awesome
20 watts! Very cool!
I didn't realize that you had already tried and made a video using a co-phased harness.
Yes, I’m going to co-phase in the lower bands soon
Great video Walt! Stan was one of a kind! So awesome of you to recognize him.
Thanks! He was so cool
I did this with 2 efhw's cut for 20m out in my yard. Used 50 ohm coax and a tuner, did not have 75 ohm at the time. still worked pretty good. want to redo it (was temporary set up) with 75 ohm phasing harness now that I have some good 75 ohm to use.
Cool Vid Walt. I was surprised at the null east and west also. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you! 73, Walt
Great video Walt. Very nice to see you putting this theory into a practical test and sharing your results. Thank you
M7LDK
Thank you so much my friend! 73, Walt
I watch W1GV videos and was intrigued by the 1/2 wave spacing video he did for 40 meters. I have a 40 meter rotatable dipole that would be suited for this, if I separated it into 1/4 wave pieces. End fire would be an option too. Relay switching? Hmmm. Retired here so lots of time to figure this out. Hope to meet you on the air one day Salty Walt. 73!
I'm looking forward to meeting you my friend! 73, Walt
I've always wanted to phase two 2 meter Isopoles again. I understand they are still made but I have to look that up.
Walt great experiment - you pattern on 20 at a 1/4wave co phased is egg shaped, long axis is perpendicular (broadside to the antennas). in modeling the long axis should be about 2dB better than the off the side in parallel with the two antennas. the max gain point is about 30degs above the horizon. Great stuff there. At 10meters and 1/2w, your pattern is through the center with about 16dB gain over the side nulls at 25degs and 60dB better over the side nulls at 5degs. Your broadside gain at 5degs is -3.1dBi about 2.5 dB better than a single vertical at the point.
I modeled for fun two same verticals length 5.15 meter both. Distance between the two 1.9 meters. At source i put W1B 90 degrees and W2B 0 degrees. Doesn't work.. Did i do it wrong?
@@48pluto the distance between the 2 should be 1/4 wave on 20m... so about 5.2 meters and both are fed in phase degree change. W1B and W2B no phase angle.
@@FromthehamshackwithNJ4Z Ah i see. Stupid me... Changed the distance to 5.2 meters and now the SWR is good. Gain 2.2DB at 28 degrees. I kept the phasing angle of 90 degrees because both antenna's are the same length.
@@48pluto leaving the 90degs in will send the pattern in one direction (end-fire). The co-phase (feeding both in phase) will bring the antenna pattern broadside. Cool stuff for sure
@@FromthehamshackwithNJ4Z DXcommander (youtube) has lately made some video's about it. Interesting stuff. If you haven't seen those yet you might look them up. Thanks for your help!
Nice experiment Walt! I have helped setup and play with a couple of four square antennas. One for 40M and one for 20M. There is a lot going on when you use those type of antennas. 73
Thank you! 73, Walt
Nice work, Walt. I've got 2 of the 17' whips and will need to try something like this.
Thanks! I’ll be waiting for your video
I did it a few times, but did some portable work with a half-square for 20M. Used a tree branch for one leg and a fishing pole for the other. Speaker wire. each end 1ft or so off the ground. Fed at the top corner. 5W QRP. pointing west coast and Europe. One of the italian stations I was working didn't believe the signal from 5W. Nulled out the N-S (I could barely hear people calling me). The setup time is the most annoying part but for something like field day or a long POTA activation for a particular band hard to beat the simplicity and gain
that was fun. we did this a lot in the early 1980's on CB. that co phasing harness gets you back to 50 ohm. can be done with a 2:1 splitter/combiner. I know DX commander and a few friends been co phasing DX commanders together . and figured out multi band part. I have seen 3 and 4 antenna's phased . Callum is working on that as well. changing length of 75 ohm changes the phasing and changed pattern to antenna RF field. adding or taking away delay. also called delay lines. how AM radio stations work with more than 1 tower. normally 4 and they go into a phaser which is made up of delay lines and caps for tunning. this changes the pattern the station radiates out of. how they steer signal to. a outher trick you can do is parasitic array. only 1 antenna driven and tuned. one slightly larger and that all ground. that becomes reflector . move it around to steer your signal. and you can even do a shorter one in opposite direction. that becomes a di reactor . you now have a 3 element beam. lots of fun you can have with more than 1 antenna . 73's
I have plans for a parasitic array soon! 73
Keep it up Walt! That "experimenter" heart will keep you young Sir!
73 - KF6IF
Thank you so much my friend! 73, Walt
Have not tried co-phasing antennas in years. Was going to set up a quad once, had everything I needed to set it up for 40 meters. But life took me elsewhere. Now I live in an and apt and it is not possible. But I might just play with it when the weather gets better in the spring.
My friend from Dubrovnik, Croatia was watching this with me and got excited when you made contact to Croatia.
I have been curious how co phasing antennas like that would work. Much Thanks, KO4HPC 73
That’s so cool! Thanks
Fantastic video, you're a source of inspiration 73' de HI8MSB
Thank you! 73, Walt
Walt, I'm up the road in VB and think it's funny you had a few Croatia contacts. I felt like there was a dedicated lane for RF between here and there in particular. who knows
Yeah they were booming, must be perfectly in our skip area
I need to wait 2 2&1/2 months before I get to see that kind of weather!!!
I was amused at all the contesters on the bands Sunday night. Decided to call out to one and in the end logged stations from Europe, Africa, Caribbean, South America and even Japan. I noticed that I didn’t have any N European stations either. I’ll have to look into that phased antenna design. Thanks for the video.
Thanks for watching! 73, Walt
I love watching your experimentation!!
Thank you so very much! 73, Walt
I can see this would work well out in the open. I tried co-phased 20m verticals in my yard, both ground mounted and raised as ground planes with radials, and I think with all the obstructions…house, carport, fence, etc….I didn’t see any improvement over a single vertical higher up. But that’s why we “play”, to learn 🤪👍! 73 de Dan WD4DB
Roger that! 73, Walt
Great video Walt
Thank you Lee!
Walt, now you are going to make me go out and buy another Wolf River 17.5 ' whip. Maybe I will buy 2 of the co phase kits and join the phasing lines with couplers to extend them for 20 meters at a half wave distance. 😅 N1XXU
Sounds like a plan! 73, Walt
I am a new ham. I got my license in Jan this year. Your videos are great! I enjoy watching you experiment with new stuff. As a fellow Virginian, and Jeeper I hope to see you on the radio! 73's! KQ4NEI
Thanks! Hope to catch you on the radio or give you the Jeep wave here in Virginia some day.
Those construction cranes at the opening would make great yagi or log periodic beams.
Highly informative vid, Walt. Thanks and keep on keeping on.
Marc (N1QGM)
Thanks for watching! 73, Walt
Ok... here's a history lesson...
Hy-Gain sold a little box called a Co-Phaser in the early 1960s. Paired with a pair of CLR2 base station antennas the box enabled the operator to have a number of directional patterns.
Fast-forward to 1973...
As truckers began to flock to the CB band, they quickly learned that the aluminum box trailers really killed the signal. New-tronics Hustler introduced the Twin Trucker series of center-loaded mirror mount antennas. Hy-Gain had been selling co-phased gutter clamps and trunk lip mounts for years and adapting them to trucks was easy.
They sold like crazy, and soon practically every OTR "big rig" sported the white "cattail" antennas.
What they did was to create a "figure eight" radiation pattern that concentrated the RF in the direction of travel. I had them on my 1967 Ford F100 and can vouch for their abilities to get reliable 40 miles in either direction with a standard mobile radio.
Fast forward...
I was doing field service in the 1980s and had a Kenwood TM-2550 in my Rabbit. In a quest for more range I mounted two Hustler CG-144 colinear antennas on the rear bumper. The older hams ragged me about having a "CB setup" but they quickly noticed the lack of mobile signal flutter and the fact that I could routinely be full quieting into the repeater in Pittsburgh from Mount Storm power station, 120 miles away. It was directional to the front of the car, roughly equivalent to a five element Yagi.
If you mount the antennas an odd multiple of a quarter wavelength the effects of fading are drastically reduced. When one antenna is at minimum the other one is at maximum.
Hy-Gain expanded the co-phasing concept to their Yagi line, selling co-phased three, four, and five element arrays. Google the old Henshaws catalogs.
They were big!
They were heavy!
They were expensive!
But, they worked great!
Awesome stuff! Thanks for sharing!
@@COASTALWAVESWIRES Happy to contribute. I read those magazines when I was a kid and dreamed about building those really cool antennas.
@@spaceflight1019 me too! I had the cheapest 1/4 wave antenna Radio Shack sold out my bedroom window and a Navaho 23 channel base (circa 1975)
@@COASTALWAVESWIRES My first antenna was the legendary Cushcraft Trik-Stik. Mounted on the same pipe as our TV antenna, it worked very well... and interfered massively with the TV!
@@COASTALWAVESWIRES I'm going through the old S-9 magazines and the earliest Hy-Gain ad featuring co-phased Colinear base antennas appears in the May 1963 issue.
More history... there's a video on my channel.
Everyone knows about the "new" Super Penetrator.
When it was first introduced in 1972 it was called "the Penetrator", or "Super CLR". What's a CLR, you ask?
From the early 1960s to 1964, Hy-Gain sold the OG Colinear base station antenna. It was rated at 3.86 dB over a ground plane. It had a 20' vertical element and either three or four radials.
It was replaced by the famous CLR2, a 19"10' vertical with three radials, a "solid state" printed circuit matching board, and a vastly improved mounting bracket. Unfortunately, the matching system was incapable of handling power above 300 watts, but the Penetrator returned to the hairpin matching system of the OG Colinear and it is rated for 1500 watts.
Awesome Walt! Always wanted to do a set of co-phased verticals myself. And thanks for mentioning Stan w1gv I’ve enjoyed his videos on antenna building, and his knowledge that he shared with everyone may he RIP. Great video
Thank you so much, Stan was amazing
This is really interesting! Thanks for another great video! You make this look easier than I thought phasing would be. I'll have to try this out.
Thanks! Give it a try, it really wasn’t that hard.
Excellent video, as always! I love antenna physics videos.
Thank you! 73, Walt
This is something I have already been working on but I will be cutting my own cables based on the math. Great video Walt.
Thanks! You’re going to do it right.
@@COASTALWAVESWIRES Hey, yours was working well. Great respect sir.
Brilliant...thanks Walt..John..G4EIJ
Just an afterthought, Walt..With this setup, it might be interesting to put out a ‘test’ call in CW, and see what sort of response you get from the RBN..It might give you a better indication of any directional properties.. Just an idea..Cheers..
Good idea! Cheers
Another fun experiment. Please keep it up!
Thank you! Will do!
Another great video Walt. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for watching! 73, Walt
Interesting Walt. I'm in WA and had an OCF dipole in a tree with the legs facing east/west and on Sunday during the DX contest, all my contacts were in the Carribean. Not sure why. Cuba, Aruba, Virgin Islands, Barbados, etc...
Thanks for watching! 73, Walt
Well dona amigo!!!! I'll definitely try that. Get some more dB won't hurt anyone 😅 73 Walt God bless.
Thank you my friend! 73, Walt
Good to know about 20m. I remember cophased CB antennas from the 1970's but never thought you could use the same harness on 20m. I expect, with slight adjustment, there will be similar results with 12m and 17m.
Yes I expect that too
You could build a phase box and change direction with just a twist of the dial. There should be a video or two out there. Also a 4 squared array should be financially feasible for most hams at 10 or 20 meters.
Yes I’ve seen those, might be a project this summer
I have been experimenting with co-phasinng a 10 m horizontal dipole with a 10m vertical . Needless to say it's proving tricky lol.
It’s a little bit of a task
Nice. Keep bringing it. Always a treat to see what you are up to.
Thank you! 73, Walt
COASTAL WAVES & WIRES Rocks!
Thank you! 73, Walt
Thanks! Great videos and advice!!!
another great vid mate this is amazing .....this is the way of the ham 73
Thank you!! 73, Walt
Very cool video Walt! May have to do some experiments with phasing multiple antennas as the WX here gets more friendly! 73 de LB5JJ
Thank you! I’m waiting for you to do a video on it! See you Sunday!
Another Great Video From “Dr Hamenstein”!
Hahaha thank you!!!
It would be interesting to see the pickup pattern on a map using a digital mode.
Very good idea for antenna testing. 😊😊
Thank you! Cheers!
Someone below mentions the same but I too remember the co-phased antennas during the 70's cb fad and hearing about an antenna switch rigged up to the array to change the phase of the lobs to the sides if needed. Can't remember the details or if it even worked - long time ago.
There’s a bunch of cool old CB stuff out there. I think I know what you are talking about
If you root through the many 1960s CB radio magazines on the World Radio and TV history site you will find a variety of very interesting antenna designs that were meant to be built by experimenters.
You need a tuned phasing harness for each band Walt. Hence why 20m performed more omni directional.
Yes, I just wanted to see what would happen
@@COASTALWAVESWIRES Of course, It's all about try it & see that's what the hobby is all about.
Go fun! I enjoyed and learnt! 👍
Thank you! 73, Walt
Very interesting, Walt. I ran phased verticals years ago on 15 meters from CT to the UK. Tried the bidirectional half-wave spacing, good, but settled kn end-fire arrays with a cartiod pattern. Just before moving back to W2, actually made a rotatable vertical array for 15 with a wooden base on casters. It worked very well, but portable? Not so much.
Got my ideas from 73 Magazine i the late 1970's and early 1980's. Gotta try it again, no?
De WB2VUO
That sounds awesome, I’ve got the phased vertical bug right now LOL! 73, Walt
It's so odd that you posted this video because I was just researching phased verticals over the weekend and was wondering how to put it into practice
Perfect, now it’s time to go experiment!
yrs ago took my ic 793 plus 2 kauai outbaker mag mtd 5w cw had ablast de wb8e
I love Kauai, it’s my all time favorite MW DX location
“Let’s try it and see what happens”. 😂Famous last words in history, what can possibly go wrong?
Hahaha I know right?
When it comes to antennas, usually very good.
When it comes to putting gasoline in the kerosene heater, not so good.
...and there was I trying to find you in the ARRL DX from the UK... 😁 73 de M1GWZ
Catch you soon! 73, Walt
Hmmm thanks for another great cideo
Thanks for watching! 73, Walt
Thanks Walt!
Thanks for watching! 73, Walt
Interesting experiment with very good results. You didn't say... but for 20 did you co-phase the coax for 20. IF not it would be interesting to redo it and see if there is anything different in performance. It would be interesting to see what your gain was. Thanks for the test.
Thanks! No I just left the 11 meter coax as-is on 20
FB on Stan.. Thanks.. Good job on verticals.
Thank you!
Nice working there walt
Thank you! 73, Walt
@@COASTALWAVESWIRES 73
Semi trucks have got the twin antennas like this. I still say single antenna is better. It seems like I had more positive results with just a single then the co-pays but for the frequency 27 MHz they really need to be 9 feet apart that's just not possible so that probably restricts them a little.
Roger that!
I co-phases out of my office here in midtown Manhattan. Im on the 22nd floor next to the Flat Iron Bldg. One Wilson 2000 on the north west corner balcony & one Wilson 2000 on my west balcony. This has given me 360 degrees of radio exposure. And maybe better propagation east west.?
That’s awesome
Where is this "Antenna Tool" that you pop up in the video...
They’re on Amazon. Many different brands and prices
No I mean the calculator. For calculating lengths of the primary element at different levels like quarter wave or half wave. When you show it it says Antenna Tool at the top.@@COASTALWAVESWIRES
@@mobiltec it’s in the iPhone App Store, should be available for Android as well
I found "The Amateur Radio Tool Kit" Is that what you have?@@COASTALWAVESWIRES
Cool experiment! I used to run dual whips on my pick up way back when because... why not? It's been a minute since I have looked at phasing. If you feed 1 leg 90 degrees out of phase, doesn't that change the direction to along the same plane?
Thanks! Yes that should be what would happen
Well done!
Thank you! 73, Walt
Hey Walt great video as always! Do you know if it would be possible to cophase 2 loop antennas together with one turned 90 degrees to the other to get 360 coverage?
Thanks! Hmmm that might be a stretch
How about setting it up as a 2 ele Beam. So instead of using the harness. Have one element as your tuned 20m antenna and the second as your reflector(or driven) have the second element grounded to the first. almost like a 2 ele beam but half. oneside.
I’ve got something similar to that planned. 73, Walt
Great Video! What I never understand about doing this is, okay, two quarter wave verticals, and half a wave length apart. With phasing. Okay. So far so good. And 1/4 wave radials under both. Again? So far, so good.. but do you attach the closest 1/4 wave radials TO each other? Then? Isn't this just an upside down half square? All the Best! Finally, as far as the Truckers go, how can they phase antennas that are not going to be 5.5 metres apart to make the half wave, as that would be wider than the cab? 73 DE W8LV BILL
Thanks Bill! I don’t think the truckers got them completely a half wave apart but were more in the situation I was with 20 in an oval pattern with a little more gain forward. Sharing the ground plane this is similar to a half square for sure
Missing the truck mirrors, lol
LOL
When I was a kid there was a guy who was from Arkansas and went by Razorback. He had two 102" stainless steel whips mounted 102" apart on the roof of the Corvair van he drove. With a Lafayette HA-250 linear he was a flamethrower!
While the setup might have worked well in Arkansas, in Pittsburgh the antennas kept striking obstructions and one day he came in contact with the overhead streetcar power lines.
Hi Walt, During the last POTA activation I used moxon on 10m and it worked fantastic. I wonder if this set is better than Moxon and if so, by how much.
I think the Moxon is much better for sure. 73, Walt
Hi Walt,
Great experiment!
Sorry for the off topic question but what Li Fe Po battery are you using for your portable ops? I decided recently to get back on HF for more than just Field Day; purchased a G90. I'll want to purchase a charger as well the battery. Are there any stores here in the HR area that sell these that you know? 73 de KC4JGC.
Thanks! This is the exact battery I use with my G90. I’ve used it for 2 years and it will last all day with moderate use out portable. LifePo4 6aH, cheap and comes with its own charger. From Amazon and it’s a one day thing:
a.co/d/0iSVpTF
@@COASTALWAVESWIRESThanks, Walt; ordered!
Came home from Columbus OH last night; found the battery at my door.
I was surprised how small the G90 really is; the battery is about half the size I expected! Color me shocked!
how long are the telescopes?
They are 17 feet long and trimmed down for each band. I put measurements in the graphics of the video
Are you trying to create Rippel’s in that Harbor 😅
Hahaha that’s the plan!
fantastic work, sorry if I missed it, but how many watts are you running ? regardless, this is impressive setup, congrats :)
Thanks! 20 watts on all QSOs
Distance between the two?
half a wave length for whatever band your doing this on.
Half wave, the lengths are in the graphics in the video
wow I didn’t know he was a silent key 😢😢😢
Yeah, he was great
As long as it works....all about empirical methods.
Say Hi to Karen from FOO ;)
Hahaha I will!
Wouldn't have been a more practical test if you had switched directions east to west on the same band 10 meters then if you picked up Europe it would show they was working easy to west.
Yeah but it would have been hard to rotate the saltwater ground plane I had behind me.
Now do it with 5 watts