Dipole vs 5/8 vertical

[chris9]

I was just wondering whether people had experience in using the dipole and a 5/8 homebase antennae.
Had a dig around on the net and it seems that some people think the dipole does 'surprising' well against other antennae.
But how would it compare against say a 5/8 silver rod or a sirio tornado (2 I'm considering).

I am hopeing to use it for farm use, so not interested in skip etc, but need 5 miles of coverage over some slightly hilly terrian, and want to put it up and forget about it for some years (10-15 at least)

I found a mount with a SO259 and 2 3/8 mounts on it in a T shape on 'another website' and considering putting 2 tankwhips on the 3/8s to make a good strong dipole antenna. Then mounting as high as poss on a chimney on the farm house. (when parents move out, which is fairly soon......)

I'm trying to avoid an unsitely antenna with lots of long ground plane radials like the sirio 827 to keeps the mrs fairly happy. know what I mean?!

Thanks for your comments/advice in advance.
Chris

[stampman]

antron 99 with firestik top and reenforce the joints with fiberglass will do the job for you and should last the length of time you need

[hotmetal1000]

A dipole antenna can be a very cheap antenna to make that does work. You don't need anything special to make them work, just some coax and some wire. For a 1/2 wave dipole on 11m cb the total length of the dipole should be approx 5.27m long, making each half 2.64m. That lenght is important for the antenna to resonant and return a low swr reading so I don't know how you would go with your 2 tankwhips.
Now you will need to mount the dipole in a vertical configuration or close too vertical for the polarization to be correct for it to work best with other whip ect antennas for local communications. You could hang it up in a tree or something and let the other end hang down but you also need to try and keep the coax coming away from the center of the dipole at right angles for best results.
You can mount the dipole horizontal as most are but you will find that at x distances you won't get a clear understandable signal. This won't matter when the skip is running, the polarization of your signal gets all mixed up anyway in the ionsphere.
How does it compare to other antenna? Well the 1/2 wave dipole can be cheap, easy and does work well for little effort but an antron 99 will give better results and probably last longer.

[porky.69]

hi there hotmetal ...mr stampman is right i use a antron 99 and i am going to take it down to replace it with another one ..its been up
on the side of the house for 20 odd years but the bottom joint has lost its thread its a bit wobberly in the wind but what a verry good antenna
just put it up and no worrys about SWR at all and ive spoken to many countrys with the antron 99 the only one iam waiting for now is oz


best wishs paul

[hotmetal1000]

Yeah if you remember I use an Imax 2000 but I have dipoles up for 80, 40 and 20m amature bands. Verticales for those bands just get toooo big.

[northern35s]

A 5/8 vertical will outperform a dipole in most circumstances, the lack of dipoles on sale for 11m is evidence to this, and should you make / buy a dipole you need an impedence transformer / balun at the feed point of the dipole, that said, making your own antenna is very rewarding and should it need repairing there is no one better suited to it's repair than it's creator

Although never having owned an Antron A99, I believe they are the muts nuts for ease of and installation. (Sirio 827 user myself)

[FISH]

Id use a imax or the a99 plane easy to use