Aviation J-Pole Antenna

[JoshuaHufford]

This is the power divider I'm using,

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Picked it up for $6 shipped on eBay.

 

[iMONITOR]

If it's a power divider then it has no isolation between ports? I think you have a CATV splitter with some 10-20dB isolation between ports? I have pretty much the same setup, for different antennas and some are combined, using 15dB amplifiers and 1to6 splitters or less with attenuators and 30ft RG6. I also have the amplifers in the room but tested directly at antenna and frequencies in the tuned band didn't change but out of band was improved.

My setup change so often that I haven't settled for one that works best. It's often one setup and then the next week another to be able to monitored different frequencies the best. Everything here are coming in at -80dBm as best and usually its down at -100dBm. The signal strenghts are very weather and season dependent.

/Ubbe

Can you post a couple pictures of your setup?

 

[Ubbe]

My professional installation:
Pic 1 Some stuff on one end of the table RTL-SDR, MSI.SDR, CATV splitter, Russian high performance UHF splitter.
Pic 2 On floor and halfway down, amplifiers, power supplies, splitters, attenuators, filters, AIS and ADS-B receivers.
Pic 3 Scanners on top of each other without any support, MD380 and CS750 DMR radios.

/Ubbe

 

[prcguy]

Your equipment area is much cleaner and more organized than most I've seen, keep up the good work!

My professional installation:
Pic 1 Some stuff on one end of the table RTL-SDR, MSI.SDR, CATV splitter, Russian high performance UHF splitter.
Pic 2 On floor and halfway down, amplifiers, power supplies, splitters, attenuators, filters, AIS and ADS-B receivers.
Pic 3 Scanners on top of each other without any support, MD380 and CS750 DMR radios.

/Ubbe

 

[Ubbe]

I've been meaning to move all radio/scanners and also vintage and new game consoles and vintage computers like Amiga1000 and C128 and with movie dedicated 4k large monitor and hundreds of blu-ray and dvd's that some are 10 years old and most are never opened, to a dedicated room with 5.1 sound as some sort of man cave. It's been on my mind a couple of years now and makes me think that all I do now are temporary for just a couple of weeks but some stuff have been temporary for 10 years.

/Ubbe

 

[questnz]

Wow Funny, Ubbe seriously you need help. Clean up this snake pit! Excess everywhere, And please post new pics in 10 days from now, not 10 years, aye. Start here 11 Best Cable Management System images in 2020 | Cable management system, Cable management, Cable some stuff may help. You make my day!

Chris

 

[prcguy]

And this is why I have never posted a picture of my radio space. Its not pretty.

Wow Funny, Ubbe seriously you need help. Clean up this snake pit! Excess everywhere, And please post new pics in 10 days from now, not 10 years, aye. Start here 11 Best Cable Management System images in 2020 | Cable management system, Cable management, Cable some stuff may help. You make my day!

Chris

 

[iMONITOR]

My professional installation:
Pic 1 Some stuff on one end of the table RTL-SDR, MSI.SDR, CATV splitter, Russian high performance UHF splitter.
Pic 2 On floor and halfway down, amplifiers, power supplies, splitters, attenuators, filters, AIS and ADS-B receivers.
Pic 3 Scanners on top of each other without any support, MD380 and CS750 DMR radios.

/Ubbe

Now that is a well used radio room not some fancy showroom! Mine used to look similar until I got married! It's still pretty cluttered but she just says whats in your office stays in your office. If we have visitors we just close the French doors with mini-blinds.

 

[questnz]

Ubbe using the word "professional" in his install description really make my day.
I am sure in 10 days we will see all nicely tidy up withing cable trays, everything labelled, cable nicely parallels, running excess cable removed and all is dandy. a real showcase of the installation. Go Ubbe go, the World is watching!

 

[prcguy]

Just this once I post a picture. Actually two pictures, one is a busy work bench and the other is supposed to be a radio operating position, but it got a little busy. This was from a year ago and there are less HF radios today but its still "busy" to most people. For me is comfy.
And what does this have to do with aviation J-poles? I don't know but there might be one buried in there somewhere.

prcguy, oooo nnnnooooo don't tell me yours is worst? Ubbe using the word "professional" in his install description make my day really.
I am sure in 10 days we will see all nicely tidy up withing cable trays, everything labelled, excess cable removed and all is dandy. a real showcase of the installation. Go Ubbe go, the World is watching!

 

[iMONITOR]

Nice play room prcguy! Just be careful not to drop a wrench across the top of those batteries!!! The only problem I really see when you get old like me and you keep having small items fall off the front edge of the bench you have to bend down, try to find them and pick them up!

 

[questnz]

all this gear survived an earthquake?

 

[prcguy]

It should survive just fine except some small items near the edge of the benches will fall, as they constantly do anyway as mentioned by iMONITOR. All of the radio equipment is powered from 440AH of batteries under the bench behind a white panel and charged by about 400w of solar, so bring on the earthquakes.

To keep the thread a tiny bit on track if that's even possible at this stage, in the brown open rack about half way down and below the Quantar repeater on a black tray is what I use for aircraft but mostly helicopter monitoring. A PRC-6909 in a Thales MA6943, 20W vehicular/base adapter feeding an Astron brand Discone.

all this gear survived an earthquake?

 

[prcguy]

You mentioned cable trays. Don't make me take a picture of the overhead cable trays feeding both benches in my pics.....

Ubbe using the word "professional" in his install description really make my day.
I am sure in 10 days we will see all nicely tidy up withing cable trays, everything labelled, cable nicely parallels, running excess cable removed and all is dandy. a real showcase of the installation. Go Ubbe go, the World is watching!

 

[questnz]

Agree with prcguy, We drifted temporarily from the original question, sorry. Back to the subject gentlemen, fun is over.
Aviation J-Pole Antenna

 

[JoshuaHufford]

Agree with prcguy, We drifted temporarily from the original question, sorry. Back to the subject gentlemen, fun is over.
Aviation J-Pole Antenna

Was that supposed to be a link?

 

[prcguy]

This is pushing it, but here is some of the 35ft of 18" wide cable tray snaking through my garage carrying all sorts of cables to my tower including my "aviation antennas", but there is no specific "aviation J-pole" used here. Is this still on topic?

You mentioned cable trays. Don't make me take a picture of the overhead cable trays feeding both benches in my pics.....

 

[scottkrueger]

Why not have some fun and build your own J pole, I would cost about 20 bucks to build. I have built a few for monitoring public safety and aviation and I haven’t had any issues. It also depends on your demographics but hey you don’t know until you try right.

 

[questnz]

Was that supposed to be a link?

No, just hint lets back to the topic as we hijacked the original query and drift into cabling management and housekeeping.

 

[JoshuaHufford]

No, just hint lets back to the topic as we hijacked the original query and drift into cabling management and housekeeping.

Ah ok I misunderstood.