Hustler DCL Scanner antenna

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rocksteady

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Dec 14, 2006
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Ok, here goes a question to the ham operators. I have a hustler dcl scanner antenna on my house. I was told some scanners antenna's you can use to transmit on 2-meter. I hooked up my Yaesu vx-5r and got good reports. Question is how safe is it and I don't have an swr meter to check my match. Any help would be great..

Rocky
KD8Ils

Hers ]'s what it is and looks like.
 

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Mikey54

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That's a simple discone. It matches well over quite a broad range. A SWR meter or an analyzer is always best, but with you not having one, I would feel safe in using it with a VX5 (we have a discone, and a couple of VX5's). No gain to it, but it does give you some height, and a wide bandwidth.

Mike VE3MKY
 

prcguy

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The DCL doesn't really qualify as a Discone. A true Discone will have either a solid skirt and cone or at least 16 elements in the skirt and cone to equal solid metal as originally designed by A. G. Kandioan in 1945. When you deviate from this, the efficiency of the Discone goes down. Most professional Discones from KRECO and others skimp a little and only have 12 elements in the skirt and cone while R/S, Icom, Diamond and the other scanner types further degrade the antennas performance with only 8 elements in the skirt and cone. The Huslter DCL has 3 elements in the skirt and cone. If your happy with that imagine how happy you might be with an actual Discone...
prcguy
 

jon_k

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prcguy said:
The DCL doesn't really qualify as a Discone. A true Discone will have either a solid skirt and cone or at least 16 elements in the skirt and cone to equal solid metal as originally designed by A. G. Kandioan in 1945.


I've yet to see the definition of an "actual discone" by your standards on the market. Does anyone sell proper discones?
 

jb872033

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Jul 28, 2004
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Cromwell CT
I am not one to get into semantics, but ill say when i find an antenna that i like and works well for me i stick to it...and i do stick by this one...im pullin in 40-60 miles on almost vhf-hi and uhf, pretty much anything but 800 i get really good reception...on that note might anyone recomend a good 800 specific "sister" antenna for the DCL? it says you can trim this one to get better RX but i am reluctant to do that on the basis that i dont want to degrade the signal i am getting right now on the other bands...dont want anything directional if i can help it as i am rather "centrally" located in comparision to the systems i want to monitor... thanks for input all!!

JB
 

prcguy

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The specifications for a Discone state if rod or wire elements are used they must not span more than .02 wavelengths at the tips, which works out to about 16 elements. There are plenty of Discones that meet the designers criteria and I have a few made around 1950 that have 16 elements in the skirt with a solid disk. Many Discones made by Andrew Corp. for UHF on up are solid copper sheet metal for the disk and cone. I have several other Discones from KRECO and Astron that use 12 elements, see these links for Astron and KRECO specs:
http://www.columbiaelectronics.com/astron_mma_1140_antenna.htm
http://www.krecoantennas.com/broadband.htm
There is also the popular military AT-197 225-400MHZ Discone which actually covers 175 to over 1000MHZ.
Its difficult to produce a solid skirt or to make a hub that will accommodate 12 or more elements, so many mfrs skimp on the design and give you less than what a textbook Discone has to offer. The Hustler version sort of resembles a Discone but its not really going to be a non resonant "aperture" type antenna or have the same BW, pattern or gain.
prcguy
jon_k said:
I've yet to see the definition of an "actual discone" by your standards on the market. Does anyone sell proper discones?
 
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