Color coded rubber duck antennas

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eahuntley

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At a place I used to work (before I was interested in radios) the antennas on the radios we used had color coded tips. I have seen these elsewhere as well, but they don't seem to be as common anymore. I'm assuming the color code is a way of distinguishing what frequency the antenna is tuned for? Maybe it correlates with the "colored dot" frequency system?

Does anyone know anything about this? And more specifically, can anyone point me to some references that would be able to specify the meaning of each color?
 

ecps92

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Motorola has Color Codes for the Antennas [trying to rememer where I saw a link].
Take the Antenna off and look at the BASE of the antenna [inside, for the color]

Ahhh....Batlabs has http://www.batnet.com/~mfwright/HT220.html

HT-220 and MT-500 Antenna Cross Reference Chart
Antenna Color Coding
(paint dot found on thread of antenna)
courtesy of the old www.mt500.com before the motorcycle

30-35 Mhz Yellow
36-40 Mhz Green
40-45 Mhz Black
46-50 Mhz Blue

136-142 Mhz Yellow
142-151 Mhz Green
151-162 Mhz Black
162-174 Mhz Blue

406-420 Mhz Red
440-470 Mhz Green
470-512 Mhz Black

I'm sure there must be a new standard as I have on my Radios


800 Mhz = Red
406-470 = White

Hopefully some of our Motorola Tech Folks will chime in.

At a place I used to work (before I was interested in radios) the antennas on the radios we used had color coded tips. I have seen these elsewhere as well, but they don't seem to be as common anymore. I'm assuming the color code is a way of distinguishing what frequency the antenna is tuned for? Maybe it correlates with the "colored dot" frequency system?

Does anyone know anything about this? And more specifically, can anyone point me to some references that would be able to specify the meaning of each color?
 

blueline_308

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they were used to distinguish what the frequency of the cheap business class walk talkies operated on...known as blue dot, red dot, etc. They were popular at Wal-Marts and such.
 

ecps92

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Sorry, but Folk Lore'.

http://www.spanieljournal.com/2wfawcett.html

The Dot and the Stars were actually on the Base of the Radio [Bottom] or backside [Rear]
for many of the popular brands [ Long Before Wally-Mart's expansion boom and back when Radio Shack actually knew about Electronics ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_band

they were used to distinguish what the frequency of the cheap business class walk talkies operated on...known as blue dot, red dot, etc. They were popular at Wal-Marts and such.
 

af5rn

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At a place I used to work (before I was interested in radios) the antennas on the radios we used had color coded tips. I have seen these elsewhere as well, but they don't seem to be as common anymore. I'm assuming the color code is a way of distinguishing what frequency the antenna is tuned for? Maybe it correlates with the "colored dot" frequency system?
Reading the OP, I don't think this has anything to do with the frequency of the antenna or the frequency of the radio. After all, I would imagine that all the radios you used at that business had to be on the same frequency, or you wouldn't be able to communicate with each other. Even different departments within a business would usually be on the same band, although each department may have a different frequency. I would bet that the antenna tip colours either denoted the department they belonged to, or else each radio just had a different colour so each user would know which was his when two or three ended up setting on the lunchroom table.
 

eahuntley

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Actually, to Clarify, I worked at the Rose Quarter Arena Complex in Portland Oregon. It was a big enough area that we had several different departments and even a few different companies that used different frequencies. I know they had at least 3 different frequencies, but those were just the ones I had any dealings with. At that time they were using some pretty old equipment. I've been back in there recently(Since Paul Allen bought it back) And I noticed all the radios were new, and each had 7 or 8 programmed channels.
 
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SAR923

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Don't know about your particular case but our portables had thee different colors on the antenna tips for the three different shifts so graves didn't grab a swing shift radio before it had a chance to charge. Might be something as simple as that.
 

ecps92

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I think the thread has gotten lost. What I read was the Color Codes for Antennas. The Color is inside the Thread of the antenna connector, not the Colors that Dept's have added to the TIPS to designate Shifts etc.



Don't know about your particular case but our portables had thee different colors on the antenna tips for the three different shifts so graves didn't grab a swing shift radio before it had a chance to charge. Might be something as simple as that.
 

eahuntley

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Figured it out..

OK, after quite a bit of putzing around online, I believe I figured it out. Icom used a color coded tip system for their antennas, to denote which frequency they were tuned for. I can't be totally certain if our radios were Icom or not, but the colors certainly seem to fit. Maybe other manufacturers used the same or similar coding system?

The tip of the antenna had colored rings on it, very similar to the pictures of the icom antennas, except it seems like some of ours had two rings instead of one. They looked like something that belonged on the antenna, and was put there by the manufacturer. It wasn't a ring of colored tape, nail polish, paint or anything like that.

http://www.epcom.net/Products/accessories-icom.htm

The antenna on mine looked very similar to the antenna labeled "ANTENA UHF" (sic) and it had a red ring around the tip. Our channel was 468.something, so that seems to fit. It seems red was certainly the predominant color for the antennas.

Thanks for all the suggestions and help :)
 

RodStrong

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OK, after quite a bit of putzing around online, I believe I figured it out. Icom used a color coded tip system for their antennas, to denote which frequency they were tuned for. I can't be totally certain if our radios were Icom or not, but the colors certainly seem to fit. Maybe other manufacturers used the same or similar coding system?

The tip of the antenna had colored rings on it, very similar to the pictures of the icom antennas, except it seems like some of ours had two rings instead of one. The antenna on mine looked very similar to the antenna labeled "ANTENA UHF" (sic) and it had a red ring around the tip. Our channel was 468.something, so that seems to fit. It seems red was certainly the predominant color for the antennas.

Thanks for all the suggestions and help :)

I have an OEM antenna from a Vertex VX-500 UHF that I've had since the mid 90's. It's got 2 red rings on the top.

Also own an ICOM F40GT UHF which has an OEM antenna with one red ring on the top.

Have a ton of unmarked antennas; kind of wish they all were marked somehow.
 
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