White Fiberglass Two way base station antenna?

[Art Sutton]

We're in the market for a two way radio antenna to use at 161 mHz VHF highband. Popular in our area is a white fiberglass antenna which is probably about 20 ft tall and has three small bays at bottom pointed downward about 45 degrees. Motorola seemed to use this antenna a lot for their installation. Why type antenna is this?

Art Sutton
GA-Carolina Radiocasting
Toccoa, GA
[email protected]

 

[LA_Guy]

Here's a good one at a great price...

http://www.radioinc.com/oscmax/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=27&products_id=196

I think this one is what you're thinking about:

http://www.sinclairtechnologies.com/catalog/product.aspx?id=84

 

[BobOnTheJob]

We're in the market for a two way radio antenna to use at 161 mHz VHF highband. Popular in our area is a white fiberglass antenna which is probably about 20 ft tall and has three small bays at bottom pointed downward about 45 degrees. Motorola seemed to use this antenna a lot for their installation. Why type antenna is this?

Art Sutton
GA-Carolina Radiocasting
Toccoa, GA
[email protected]

Good antenna for side mounting...bad antenna for top mounting. I can't count how many of them I've seen peeled back like a banana after a direct lightning hit. My favorite is the Celwave PD 340. It's a 4 dipole array on a 22' (approx) pole that is pretty well bullet proof where lightning is concerned. It's available in a number of frequency bands & comes with or without the pole to meet your specific needs.

http://www.wiscointl.com/celwave/antennas/OmniExpose/pd340spec.htm

 

[more kilowatts]

Re: Here's a good one at a great price...

I think this one is what you're thinking about:
http://www.sinclairtechnologies.com/catalog/product.aspx?id=84

Yes, this antenna was once manufactured by Phelps-Dodge and was known as the Stationmaster. I believe Sinclair took over the antenna business from Phelps-Dodge a few years ago. There are a bunch of them still out there, some of them probably not being used anymore. You might be able to get someone to let you have one for just taking it down. Since the majority of these were used in the 152-155 mHz range, they are fairly broad banded and you wouldn't have any trouble adjusting it for 161 mHz.

 

[littlejohn]

Art, those are Stationmastes, and they're all over N Georgia, among other places. As the poster above says, they don't do well when lightning hits them. The Celwave/DB Products stacked dipoles are desireable because the RF harness is external, and can be repaired when the thing talks to God on a one - on - one basis.
For a Marti base antenna, I've had way better luck stacking a couple or four yagis and using a rotor for them. The gain and interference rejection makes them worth the extra cost, particularly when you're doing high school football or basketball and have a fair amount of money riding on the broadcast.