raising the stinger???????

[chopcorejc]

i read somewhere (possibly in this forum, can't remember where), that raising the stinger an 1/8 of an inch from being bottomed out on the wilson antennas would be better then having it bottomed out............is that true?????????

[231]

No. The SWR's are what will determine where the stinger should be. That would be true with most any antenna...not just Wilson.

[Mr RadioActive]

Exactly it doesnt matter at all where the stinger is in the antenna, as long as your SWRs are low.

[jessejamesdallas]

Problem with having your stinger "Bottomed-out" with the swr set. Is if later you think the antenna still needs some "Fine-tuning", It would be easy-er to do the fine-tuning, if the stinger is NOT bottomed-out...

If you have the stinger like halfway inside the coil (on a Wilson bottom loaded antenna) then you can fine-tune, by just either raising the stinger some, or lower it. If bottomed-out, and you see you need to go lower, your going to have to cut some more off again.

Different swr meters can read differently. So lets say you first set the swr using a Dosy meter. And it says you have a 1.1 swr, with the stinger bottomed-out. Then later you check it using a Astatic Meter, and you come up with a swr of 1.2 on channel 40, so you go and cut off some more stinger to get back down to 1.1...Then you use a mfj antenna analyzer, and find the stinger is now too short! Now when you try to raise the stinger, you don't have enough left...

Just something I ran into once...or twice

[chopcorejc]

understood...........that makes sense............but here's another question, which swr meter is the most reliable one to purchase???????

[231]

understood...........that makes sense............but here's another question, which swr meter is the most reliable one to purchase???????

Depends on who you ask. Typically the Bird meters are the preferred by many old timers...but generally speaking most are fairly reliable. I have an old Paradynamics multiscale that I've had for years without a lick of problems. Many here don't like them, though. I'd say ask Radio Active what he's seen folks be the happiest with, and go from there. The prices can vary so much that alot of it will depend on your budget IMO. Many here like the Dosy line, which I wouldn't disagree with. They've been around for a long time and make decent stuff.

Hope that helps some.

[SmallTruckBigRadio]

understood...........that makes sense............but here's another question, which swr meter is the most reliable one to purchase???????

Depends on who you ask. Typically the Bird meters are the preferred by many old timers...but generally speaking most are fairly reliable. I have an old Paradynamics multiscale that I've had for years without a lick of problems. Many here don't like them, though. I'd say ask Radio Active what he's seen folks be the happiest with, and go from there. The prices can vary so much that alot of it will depend on your budget IMO. Many here like the Dosy line, which I wouldn't disagree with. They've been around for a long time and make decent stuff.

Hope that helps some.

Good advice