Hey Ratchet Jaws, seen this one???

To be honest, the oil filled antenna for $26 at Pilot is the best bang for the buck for someone who wants to experiment. If you put a longer shaft underneath that oil filled load and put an identical shaft underneath one of my loads the cheaper one will actually work better for a longer period Of time. I hate to see people spend money on things that are unnecessary

 

When I build an antenna from scratch I first decide on my mounting location and then I measure from the ground up to that location and subtract that distance from 13 foot 6 inches and whatever measurement I come up with I divide that amount by 2 and that would be the center of my load. Whatever length the shaft must be to attach to the bottom of the load at that particular height is where I cut the shaft. Most of my antennas that I build the shaft and the whip are identical length. And then I tune the coil to match the rest of it. With the mass-produced antennas the coil is a predetermined length and you cannot change the coil length so I would measure from the bottom of the load to the top of the whip and subtract that distance from the overall physical length you are looking for and whatever measurement you come up with that is how long I would cut the new shaft. There should be minimal cutting of the whip after the shaft is lengthened

 

I still have my custom jig with the three eighths by 24 threads per inch die mounted in it so if you happen to cut a piece of three eighths inch 304 stainless rod to any sort of length you need I can always cut threads on either side of it for free

 

Count me in to if you ever decide building and selling antenna!
Might be some kind of project for retirement...or pre retirement who knows!

 

You can purchase replicas of the antennas that I built for myself at Bob's CB shop. I think he charges about $75 apiece and he has them on his display

 

Bob doesn't try very hard to sell them and he probably encourages people not to buy them so I'm sure they'll be sitting there for quite a long time because they are very heavy

 

I wanted something I could smash with a baseball bat and kill birds with driving down the highway without having to worry about breaking it. If you smash it into a tree branch it will bend like Gumby and all you have to do is get parked and reach out the window and bend it back straight and you're back in business

 

Ya' know, if you could catch a bird running down the road *and* put a couple of gallons of RF through it, you could snare AND cook the beast by the time you need to take a break

Also, I chuckled at the description of the A-10 as the inspiration for the antenna. I saw a gag poster, professionally done by a poster company, that had a 6-o'clock-high view of an A-10 dissolving a tank on the ground. The caption read: "A-10 Thunderbolt II: Proof that you can make anything fly if you hang enough engines on it."

Still cracks me up. I see the USAF has retired the line for the -- what, second time? -- and the pilots mostly seem to want them to remain in service.

The mind boggles.....
73