Ever wonder what is inside your VHF antenna? I had a pair that were on my boat when I bought it in 1994. Neither radio worked particularly well, so both were replaced, with a single radio head unit and a "RAM Mike" for the FB. That meant I only needed one antenna, and I treated the radio to a new one.
Now it is time to throw those old antennas away, so in order to fit them into a garbage can, I first ran them thru the saw. What I saw inside surprised me, as they were very different.
One is thcker, heavier, more robust in every way than the other. The pictures show after removing the guts from the Fibreglass skin. The heavier one has a brass tube that runs most of the way up, but begins with an outer brass tube, the size of the inside of the FG skin, but ends after a couple of feet. Inside that is the 5/16" brass tube in the photos, that ends in the top section, but I couldn't get it out to see how far up it goes. The coax that it is connected to only goes up inside the larger brass tube to the bottom of the smaller brass tube.
The smaller one has the coax ending a few feet up, where it is soldered to a 3/16 flex coax wire, with a resister at the connection point. The flex coax goes the rest of the way up inside the FG.
Neither appears on a Google search, for the names on the exterior of each, "Commander" and "SuperGain".
Now it is time to throw those old antennas away, so in order to fit them into a garbage can, I first ran them thru the saw. What I saw inside surprised me, as they were very different.
One is thcker, heavier, more robust in every way than the other. The pictures show after removing the guts from the Fibreglass skin. The heavier one has a brass tube that runs most of the way up, but begins with an outer brass tube, the size of the inside of the FG skin, but ends after a couple of feet. Inside that is the 5/16" brass tube in the photos, that ends in the top section, but I couldn't get it out to see how far up it goes. The coax that it is connected to only goes up inside the larger brass tube to the bottom of the smaller brass tube.
The smaller one has the coax ending a few feet up, where it is soldered to a 3/16 flex coax wire, with a resister at the connection point. The flex coax goes the rest of the way up inside the FG.
Neither appears on a Google search, for the names on the exterior of each, "Commander" and "SuperGain".
