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View Full Version : Anyone have an opinion on al capones



doughboy
12-02-2011, 12:33 PM
anybody using alcapone antennas in a bounceback setup whats your opinion of them compared to 55's im thing about trying some out

noisemaker
12-03-2011, 09:27 AM
The BAC's are a little funny. They are all about the spacing. Where the R4's like 86" spacing, the BAC's like shorter spacing. I have the one on my lil green maul and it tunes great but had to raise stinger all the way and made a 1.5" spacer for underneath and its perfect. Put it on the burban by itself and it sucks horribly! When in bounceback, they like shorter spacing but if you are already pucked for 86, then you can play with lengths and probably get it down. Not the greatest design of antenna, but they nice for ride-arounds cause theyre only 5'. They aint no r4's- thats for sure!

doughboy
12-03-2011, 10:35 AM
yeah im already at 86" ive never been able to get my 55's down below 1.1 and their not very widebanded although my mfj might be a little flakey its the old one with no advanced modes only gives impedance magnitude but my birds only show about 4 watts back with 3kw dead key so i tend to just leave it be i ocasionally get a little rf like the wipers popping on but that only happens once in a blue moon so i was thinking about trying the BAC's or adding a cap to the antennas

noisemaker
12-03-2011, 11:38 AM
you saw mine when i was at the break that night. My rear is an extended r6 with the 3/4" wrap. Im 1.0 at 26.900 and hit 1.1 at about 28.700. Maybe the wrap, maybe be the coax. Im running 1/2 heliax cut at 1/2wave x velocity factor (multiply 18x.81= 14.57' ). Maybe try my sticks on your truck and see if it changes. have to set em when the d layer is shut down too. if you test em when the skip is rollin, youll get a different reading

doughboy
12-03-2011, 02:41 PM
yea i may have to step it up to heliax im running 217 cut at 1/2wave i thought the heliax would be overkill but now im second guessing that and i have heard about the not setting it when the skip is active but i didnt think there was any truth to that because ive never seen any mention of it in the mfj manual or any of the ham forums i lurk around but i may just try a reading during the day and at night when the bands dead and see what happens my antennas are also the charger knockoffs so the coil is kind of narrow on them

noisemaker
12-03-2011, 08:59 PM
Well, im working on a smaller rider-around that performs just as well as a 55. Same height as a BAC, but different coil etc.. HV's antenna is actually the guinea pig cause he ordered one and wanted it short. so we'll see what happens. I ran LMR400 in the prius and I ballparked it- luckily i must have hit it on the nose cause everything tunes perfect on that thing. I had a wil 5k bolted thru the roof and that hunk of crap wouldnt tune to save its life - AND i modified the mount with lmr400 (from the rg8u). It just doesnt like the base load i guess.

doughboy
12-04-2011, 07:27 PM
do you use a shunt capacitor at the feedpoint of your antenna i was thinking about trying one of those out

noisemaker
12-04-2011, 09:33 PM
Nope! No caps- direct feed. I was going to try a cap on the rear stick, but dont really need it

High Voltage Mobile NJ
12-05-2011, 01:58 AM
anybody using alcapone antennas in a bounceback setup whats your opinion of them compared to 55's im thing about trying some out

well they are great for low low reflect . big poppa pump loves them along with them big stations you here in conn ! i had one i loved it , i even had a ganster T , actually talked flat side o on some beams , but a tab to heavy running to T 's in the wind. if you have the stinger in them it can only go down a couple inches pass the 2nd to 3rd turn on the antenna , because they say rf gets trapped in there if ya run alot of watts , so that kind of scared me about that , im not sure its true tho. lol

they kick ass tho i had one . but im not crazy about them for skip. they make a flexible one that is similiar to a steel whip that antenna tunes the best , with a 9 inch shaft , the gangstar is the bigest 1 inch and 3/4 shaft width antenna is not that high overall because of its wide bottom , i love the soild aluminum stinger he uses for the gansters strong and alumium transmits better than a steel whip stinger would , so therefore you would become alot more efficent . there a bit pricy tho. but so is stargun which some people call tinker toys that are garbage , lol


i love to try different things , at one time i had 10 antenna's its a sicknes i used to have . lol lol
i really had so much luck with overgain and performance with those 18 to 24 inch shafts with the coil high off the roof . you and only have to make that choice , do not take my advise , lol lol

coolbreeze
12-05-2011, 09:51 PM
yeah im already at 86" ive never been able to get my 55's down below 1.1 and their not very widebanded although my mfj might be a little flakey its the old one with no advanced modes only gives impedance magnitude but my birds only show about 4 watts back with 3kw dead key so i tend to just leave it be i ocasionally get a little rf like the wipers popping on but that only happens once in a blue moon so i was thinking about trying the BAC's or adding a cap to the antennas


first answer all capones are swamp antennas. so are starguns.


and doughboy if you only have 4 watts at 3000w dk. thats actually much lower reflect then I look for. you are actually loosing gain Id have about 25-30 watts


using a mfj to tune 2 antennas isnt always the best way. best is with a bird.

coolbreeze
12-05-2011, 09:53 PM
unless you are over 5kw a cap wont help much. I dont run one on the keydown truck

High Voltage Mobile NJ
12-05-2011, 11:08 PM
i always use an analizer first . sometimes you might be 1.0 on 26.7500 flat to 27.2050 and you will not no it if your only looking at an analog bird meter telling you have 1 to 3 watts reflect ! but the Bird Meter didn't tell you that you where resonating below channel 1 , not good .

coolbreeze
12-05-2011, 11:21 PM
the one thing the mfj is good for is checking the ohms of the antenna system.

High Voltage Mobile NJ
12-06-2011, 12:32 AM
the one thing the mfj is good for is checking the ohms of the antenna system.


Doughboy asks a ????????? about antenna's and now we going off the topic here .

we are not asking you about your opinion what you think about starguns or ya theory about using air variable caps , this is not cbrc , thank you very much !!! :):OSMILEY::brzzzzz::zomg:

High Voltage Mobile NJ
12-06-2011, 12:42 AM
the one thing the mfj is good for is checking the ohms of the antenna system.

again you missed what i said and i refuse to talk to narrow minded people that think they no it all .

you can have excellent ohms and be talking resonating below the 27 mhz band . i trust my analizer anyday of the week before i take advise from a bird watt slug meter . time for you to go back to bandcamp breeze and start learning how to set up an antenna system and stop relying on Terry at 55 to tell you how to tune ya truck . :):hope my fake smile:yo !:

coolbreeze
12-06-2011, 07:20 AM
HV im only going to say this once and you can then go band camp all you want.

1. my post was a comment to a prior post.
2. looks like your starting to ride the coat tails fo the rdx
3. all of your antenna beliefs have done nothing but get you cut clean off. so the proof of your choices is obvious.
4. this is a new forum. dont be a moron so quickly!!!
5. i smell jealousy

noisemaker
12-06-2011, 08:13 AM
UhOh.. should I make some popcorn? HA! MFJ is better than just ohms. I know a bird is the way to go, but now that im building these things, I can use the the capacitance mode to make sure i have the coils right, etc. Gotta hit that Mode button a couple times- there more stuff in there! lol

doughboy
12-06-2011, 08:25 PM
now my mfj has a shitty software version it has no advanced mode does not show me the actual impedance or reactance only a sum of the two called the impedance magnitude actually they say its better in some ways because if it reads a low swr your good because the other models can show low swr but still have a high reactance on the antenna but i dont like it that way i want to see whats going on

doughboy
12-06-2011, 08:27 PM
hay coolbreeze do you put your cap on the rear antenna because ive read in the arrl book about a vari cap on the hot called a shunting cap sort of an L network really just an antenna tuner no performance gains but can make the equipment a little happier

coolbreeze
12-06-2011, 09:36 PM
the cap on the hot is to deal with tunning issues due to incorrect puck location, lack of ground etc. a cap is used to aid in capacitance, and at time you need a coil to adjust the inductance. Now this does not adjust the physical swr of the antenna, but it is a matching network to keep the amp happy. you can get 1.0 swr by doing either.

the antenna on the rear ( grounded ) antenna is totally different. it can help lower reflect and keep max gain, and alter your tx pattern. I have tried it both ways. Ive seen more gain using a cap. typically resulting in a longer rear antenna. I did talk off the rear better with the cap even with more fwd gain. I dont run a cap in the keydown set up.. only due to i havent spent the money on a vacuum cap yet

High Voltage Mobile NJ
12-06-2011, 10:15 PM
well i think u should save ya money and get a comet variable there worth every dollar .
capacitors hold voltage and are part of the overall tuning on your antenna system . its got nothing to do with keeping ya amp happy , your confusing the people here . dont post unless you can explain in a clear way breeze , u have to be very technical when talking about technical issues . when i installed mine my ohms droped about 6 ohms lower , swr stayed the same unless i turned the variable in . im about 28 picfards with my antenna system on one antenna . between 45 to 50 ohms flat 1.0 on 60 channels before dipping to 1.1 o the higher ones.
it will lower ya angle of radiation to . i put mine on the meter and it said so . im around 15 degrees from the mobile on one antenna .

coolbreeze
12-06-2011, 10:22 PM
you so have no clue, are you sure you have not been drinking or smoking tonight?

and a stargun would need a cap to tune. a real antenna does not!!

HV maybe I should post in crayon. would that help you? and we are not talking about a power cap which does hold voltage. A capacitor in a PF range doesnt hold shit. It is a circuit which in the case in question is taking rf to ground in a very minor way.

High Voltage Mobile NJ
12-06-2011, 10:28 PM
my stargun has whipped more ass on the superbowl , local , talking anywhere than most people do in a lifetime .
i have nothing to prove . stop being a room raider . i always make my tuning better with any antenna. its called phasing , live it learn it love it . my whole truck is phased with the antenna . bump on than that , lol lol lol

coolbreeze
12-06-2011, 10:30 PM
hv i do believe you started with the attacks. Looks like youre now bailing out from the stress. shame it was that easy

and peperoni has cut off more people then you have

High Voltage Mobile NJ
12-06-2011, 10:35 PM
no not at all . your just a pure jackass and very narrow minded and non technical.

noisemaker
12-07-2011, 09:23 AM
Ok girls.. play nice or you both get a time out.. lol:brzzzzz:

Bigmic919
12-07-2011, 03:55 PM
I always wanted to try out one of them Capones. I like the way they look. Just never heard real good things about their performance. I like the colors you can get. Maybe Noisemaker will do some anodizing on his new antennas and I can get me a black one???:yo !:

noisemaker
12-07-2011, 04:54 PM
well, i dont know about colors. maybe a black one just to try it. Like i mentioned previously - my capone is awesome on the lil green maul- but on the burban its a hunk of crap and a wilson tunes better than that thing

coolbreeze
12-07-2011, 07:02 PM
and yor buddys truck?

noisemaker
12-07-2011, 07:06 PM
My buddy's truck? Cant speak for anyone else xcept md sidewinder. I had my hands in his headliner. Lol