Antenna informtion needed

dave
shared these priceless pearls of wisdom:

-Hey Jim Thanks!
-
-Maybe I should just build him a generic dipole out of wire or copper tape.
-How do you get the bandwidth wider, use a wider conductor?

That is correct. The "fatter" the conductor the wider the bandwidth. You can
do a pretty fair job with two or three strands of bare copper wire (stripped
romex) in parallel for each arm of the dipole. The problem is that the fatter
the wire (or the apparent wire) the shorter will be the elements. I know that
½" copper tape centers up pretty nice with a length around 20½". If you use
bare copper, you might cut one of them a half inch longer and one of them half
an inch shorter and see what happens.

-
-Also, my only vswr meter is a old radioshack one for use in the 10 meter
- range, can I retrofit it to work in the 120 mhz area?

9 out of 10 of those old CB VSWR meters aren't worth a darn in the aircraft
band. It is catchascatchcan as to whether yours is going to be "good" or not.
One easy way to tell is to calibrate it with a few known good antenna
installations and see if the CB meter comes even CLOSE to a known good meter.

Jim


Jim Weir (A&P/IA, CFI, & other good alphabet soup)
VP Eng RST Pres. Cyberchapter EAA Tech. Counselor
http://www.rst-engr.com