J Pole antennas

[vagrant]

Purchase the Diamond D130J discone if you have PL-259 connectors on your LMR-400. If you have N connectors on your coax, then purchase the Diamond D3000N discone and start enjoying the hobby. Taking off the top vertical element as recommended will reduce potential RFI from around 50MHz. Just put a nut on there in place of the vertical to hold things in place. Your "budget" may need to make room for notch filters to block things you don't want. For example, filters for FM Broadcast, nearby strong paging systems around 152 MHz, NOAA filter around 162 MHz and perhaps others like a low pass filter that blocks 500 MHz and up. Still, none of these filters may be needed. You will not know until your system is up and running and the filters may eat up your remaining budget. For now, put up your system.

That MP antenna is definitely/obviously not what you are looking for, nor is a J-Pole based on your posts in this thread. Get the Diamond discone, put it in place and start having fun. When you remove that vertical, either of those Diamond discone antennas are going to favor the 150MHz - 470MHz you are looking for.

** UPDATE **
If you want to blow your budget for just the antenna, you can order a Kreco D-150A for around $400 shipped. I am unsure if it would perform better than either of those Diamonds, but you could probably shoot at it from the ground using a shotgun with some birdshot...if you think it would see abuse like that.

Kreco D-150A Broadband Discone Base Antenna 150-1200MHz | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Kreco D-150A Broadband Discone Base Antenna 150-1200MHz at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[prcguy]

If the OP wants to hear VHF air band then the Kreco D-100A would go down to about 100MHz where the D-150A goes down to about 150Mhz.

Purchase the Diamond D130J discone if you have PL-259 connectors on your LMR-400. If you have N connectors on your coax, then purchase the Diamond D3000N discone and start enjoying the hobby. Taking off the top vertical element as recommended will reduce potential RFI from around 50MHz. Just put a nut on there in place of the vertical to hold things in place. Your "budget" may need to make room for notch filters to block things you don't want. For example, filters for FM Broadcast, nearby strong paging systems around 152 MHz, NOAA filter around 162 MHz and perhaps others like a low pass filter that blocks 500 MHz and up. Still, none of these filters may be needed. You will not know until your system is up and running and the filters may eat up your remaining budget. For now, put up your system.

That MP antenna is definitely/obviously not what you are looking for, nor is a J-Pole based on your posts in this thread. Get the Diamond discone, put it in place and start having fun. When you remove that vertical, either of those Diamond discone antennas are going to favor the 150MHz - 470MHz you are looking for.

** UPDATE **
If you want to blow your budget for just the antenna, you can order a Kreco D-150A for around $400 shipped. I am unsure if it would perform better than either of those Diamonds, but you could probably shoot at it from the ground using a shotgun with some birdshot...if you think it would see abuse like that.

Kreco D-150A Broadband Discone Base Antenna 150-1200MHz | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Kreco D-150A Broadband Discone Base Antenna 150-1200MHz at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[Rawkee1]

Thanks Vagrant, that solidifies what bits and pieces of what everyone was has kindly suggested. Most advised me to remove the vertices element. I do have a Pl259 on the LMR400 cable that I ran. I will have to try it out because I heard NOAA at my other place I lived. Trial and error, but that’s what make it challenging and fun. I will be searching for the D130J. I am still trying to locate my, what I call, the pitchfork antenna I had that worked excellent. I think it was a Channel Master that’s been discontinued a long time.

 

[vagrant]

I believe I own two of the pitchfork antennas you noted. I'm using one for receivers and the other for TV's. I think you mean this one as discussed in another thread. Yeah...discontinued. Enjoy your new Diamond D130J discone. It works well.

Anyways, if filters are in your future I use various one's made by Dale Parfitt and they work very well. You can tell him the frequency of the problem signal and he'll tune it for that.

 

[Rawkee1]

This is the antenna I have if I can ever find it. It was the best antenna I ever owned and I ran Rg59. I had a Pro 2006 I believe and it worked so good good with this antenna. It looked similar to the antenna made by Dale Parfitt earlier in this post, but mine was gold and the elements were made with the same aluminum as the old TV antennas.

 

[Rawkee1]

Does anyone think there is a difference between the Kreco D150A and the Diamond D130J ?

 

[prcguy]

The Diamond and most consumer grade Discones have 6 radials in the skirt and disc where the Kreco has 12. That improves things plus the build quality of the Kreco is super heavy duty and all made in the USA. The Kreco D-100A would be a closer match to the Diamond D-130 in frequency range.

Does anyone think there is a difference between the Kreco D150A and the Diamond D130J ?

 

[Ubbe]

Does anyone think there is a difference between the Kreco D150A and the Diamond D130J ?

Not in performance. The optimum discone are a cone of metal sheet and a solid disk. But that works as a sail with a lot of wind drag. You compromise and use rod elements instead. It will make a wavy direction pattern where signal are less in the direction between the legs. If you do a test and turn a 8 leg discone, that Diamond has, 1/16 turn and compare signal strength it will be less than a 1dB difference between min and max to a direction, too small difference to be noticed while listening.

/Ubbe

 

[WX9RLT]

One of my first antennas was a J-Pole antenna.

Mainly because of the cost.

I would recommend a J-Pole!

Over the years, I have owned 3 of them.

I was impressed with the quality, that I bought 2 more over the years.
I used them both for ham radio, and listening to the scanners.

They were great for listening to the VHF bands!!!

 

[vagrant]

I don't see Kreco selling the D-100A on eBay anymore, but wasn't it over $600? I figure one could still buy it direct. I regret mentioning the Kreco now. Put another way, people have been enjoying their Diamond D130J discone antenna for over a decade.

 

[prcguy]

The current pricing on Kreco antennas has gone stupid. If you look at the difference between the D-100A and D-150A its about 11 feet of 3/8" aluminum rod for the bottom cone and about 48" of 1/4" aluminum rod for the top disc. At a metal shop that's about $20 in raw materials and the labor is exactly the same. However the price difference between the D-100A and D-150A is $255 with the D-100A costing $618 and the D-150A costing $318.

Kreco was sold not long ago and the new owner vowed to keep production in the same factory and not raise prices. So much for that.

I don't see Kreco selling the D-100A on eBay anymore, but wasn't it over $600? I figure one could still buy it direct. I regret mentioning the Kreco now. Put another way, people have been enjoying their Diamond D130J discone antenna for over a decade.

 

[Rawkee1]

how is the quality on the Sirio discone antenna? I'vr read the antenna is good quality.

 

[vagrant]

I would bet $1 that there is a negligible difference between a Sirio and the corresponding Diamond discone. I figure much as been answered about the Sirio and the search function at the top right will provide plenty of feedback on the different models, versus rehashing in this thread...about J-poles.

how is the quality on the Sirio discone antenna? I'vr read the antenna is good quality.

 

[mmckenna]

how is the quality on the Sirio discone antenna? I'vr read the antenna is good quality.

I don't know about the discone. I did receive a 5/8th's wave VHF Sirio antenna when I set up an AIS receive site. It's been up for 8-9 years now and is still doing well.

 

[Ubbe]

I don't know about the discone. I did receive a 5/8th's wave VHF Sirio antenna when I set up an AIS receive site. It's been up for 8-9 years now and is still doing well.

I got the same AIS antenna with my free receiver. I also have a yagi for VHF and another for UHF from Sirio and they are extreamly well built and perform excellent. Its also easy to get antenna spareparts from Sirio.

/Ubbe

 

[mmckenna]

I got the same AIS antenna with my free receiver. I also have a yagi for VHF and another for UHF from Sirio and they are extreamly well built and perform excellent. Its also easy to get antenna spareparts from Sirio.

/Ubbe

Good to hear. I've been thinking of replacing the Diamond discone I picked up for free many years ago with a Sirio 5/8th's wave base antenna at home.

 

[WA8ZTZ]

FWIW, here is a comparo between a 2 meter J-pole and a Diamond D130 discone...
with the radio currently tuned to the NOAA WX station in Angola, Indiana (about 100 miles
from my QTH)… nothing heard on the J-pole while reception is a bit noisy but can be copied on the
discone. Both antennas are mounted on the roof with the J-pole slightly higher than the discone.
The discone has been up there just over 6 years and still looks new... a nice antenna.

 

[prcguy]

If you were to tune the J-pole to 162MHz I would expect it to work a little better than the Discone. A J-pole is fairly narrow band and that is a great example of how the Discone with its very broad band width can outperform higher gain antennas when they are used out of band. The good old Discone just keeps a chuggin along with the same mediocre performance everywhere.

FWIW, here is a comparo between a 2 meter J-pole and a Diamond D130 discone...
with the radio currently tuned to the NOAA WX station in Angola, Indiana (about 100 miles
from my QTH)… nothing heard on the J-pole while reception is a bit noisy but can be copied on the
discone. Both antennas are mounted on the roof with the J-pole slightly higher than the discone.
The discone has been up there just over 6 years and still looks new... a nice antenna.

 

[techman210]

Does anyone think there is a difference between the Kreco D150A and the Diamond D130J ?

Outside of the massive quality difference, the Kreco doesn’t misrepresent the bandwidth of their discone. Discones by design have a 8:1 bandwidth.

A “discone-ish” antenna with a vertical element on top is no longer a discone.

 

[jgorman21]

What are you comparing them to?

Comparing to nothing. A general statement. I’ve owned many different types of antennas. Big and small. Cheap and ridiculously expensive. I’ve had Diamond antennas that were just “meh!” My favorite was a Lafayette Ground Plane ($10.95 in 1969!)

Where I am located now and for what I’m trying to hear it’s fine. That’s all! I have a discone waiting in the wings for the future too. No comparisons. Just experiences!