Comet GP-3 Question....

[DewAddict]

I'd like to keep my GP-3 a little less conspicuous in my back yard since it's pretty much bright white in color. I don't want to paint it but was thinking of wrapping it in dark green electrical tape on the outer fiberglass shell since the backdrop is some very, very tall trees and it will blend in. Will this cause any propagation issues?

Thanks for the info.

 

[prcguy]

I think covering an entire antenna with tape would make a mess.

I paint most of my antennas and there are a couple of semi gloss grey colors from Rustoleum that really dull the antenna against the sky. I've done a few with shades of green, grey and black as a tree cammo and here is a before and after pic of a white fiberglass antenna that got the tree cammo. I give the antenna a base coat of the main color, green in this case then spritz some streaks and spots of black and grey. There is no known change in performance or VSWR.




Edit: Here is another cammo antenna that lives in a dense wooded area, a 43ft vertical with auto tuner at the base and a lot of ground radials. In the summer the vegetation gets really thick and its so hard to find the antenna that last time I went to service it I couldn't find it and was about to give up then discovered it was only about 6ft behind me. It really disappears in the summer brush. Before painting you could easily see the bright aluminum antenna from the house 125ft away and the orange bucket could be seen a block away.

In this case the base color was a coyote brown then I spritzed it with black and grey.

 

[DewAddict]

Thanks for the reply, did you get the Rustoleum paint without metal in it? I was reading that is a must. Any chance you remember which bottle it was?

 

[K6GBW]

I shot mine with gray primer and it's been fine. No degradation of performance at all. The gray color really does blend with just about any background.

 

[prcguy]

Thanks for the reply, did you get the Rustoleum paint without metal in it? I was reading that is a must. Any chance you remember which bottle it was?

The rattle can says "Rust-oleum Painters Touch 2X Ultra cover paint + primer". No metal, no problem.

 

[K6GBW]

I think it's good to paint these Comet antennas anyway. The white paint and clear coat turns chalky after about a year. The paint kind of protects them.

 

[n4dbm]

I wrapped a Diamond X-50 (about the same size and weight at your GP-3) with Scotch super 88, starting from bottom and working up to the top. I Put a short piece of heat shrink at the very top to keep the tape from unwrapping. It didn't make a mess with me and it looked great. The reason I did this was for longevity. The antenna is at 360 feet and I'll probably never have access to it again. I have seen Scotch 33 and 88 last well over 20 years in weather. After 25 some years when the tape rots off, you have a new antenna underneath. Scotch also makes green tape (and all other colors) as mentioned previous.

Another idea is to buy a 6 foot piece of 1" heat shrink, color of your choice.. Shrink it up.. The added surface area and tiny bit of weight will most likely never harm a thing. No effects in performance, RF-wise either way..

 

[N4GIX]

I second the use of 1" heat shrink. Not only did I use it for the N connector sealing, but also on a long, 2 piece fiberglass Comet antenna, sealing the screw-together joint.