Silver Rod

Hi folks,

Just got going with a CRT SS 6900v and had clear skip coming in from Europe and the USA all afternoon. I made contact on channel 19 FM with a guy who was in a car up a hill about 15 miles away - and another on USB in Perth that is about 40 miles away. I tried for a few contacts in Europe on SSB with no luck - but really enjoying it so far.

I'm using a sirio boomerang antenna on a 15 foot extendable pole that I can take down when I'm finished. No option to put it on a roof but the gardens are long here so its a fair bit from the houses. 

There are some trees at the bottom of the garden that I could use to hide a silver rod but reckon I would only be able to mount it on abou a 6 ft mast. Looking for opinions on whether this would be an improvement over the boomerang on the 15 ft mast.

Thanks SS

Perhaps you could get it higher by wrapping the rod in camo tape, you would only need to do the exposed bit. From a distance, it would just look like a tall bit of the tree.

13oots2 wrote:

Perhaps you could get it higher by wrapping the rod in camo tape, you would only need to do the exposed bit. From a distance, it would just look like a tall bit of the tree.

 Good idea, could maybe even spray it dark green.

Edit- would spray painting or covering an aerial in tape- effect performance?

A silver rod six feet off the ground will be a massive improvement over the boomerang. Use good quality coax and no painting it will not effect it.

I had a boomerang many moons ago and upgraded to a silver rod and noticed quite a difference between them with the silver rod quite a bit better,i did change antenna position as well so that could of helped.

Antennas are to me the work of magic and finding a good spot can be luck....

Nightprowler wrote:

A silver rod six feet off the ground will be a massive improvement over the boomerang. Use good quality coax and no painting it will not effect it.

I use a 5/8th wave silver rod, about 7ft above the ground.  I've worked many countries with it on 10m, so they do work low to the ground.  For local stuff, it's not that good though, as it needs to be higher up for ground wave contacts.

So I've ordered a 1/2 wave Thunderpole and should get it in the trees at some point on Saturday. Will soon see if it's an improvement but hopeful that it should be.

Silver Surfer wrote:

So I've ordered a 1/2 wave Thunderpole and should get it in the trees at some point on Saturday. Will soon see if it's an improvement but hopeful that it should be.

Good luck with it...

Some pointless info for you..My CB handle back in 1979 and all through the 80s was Silver Surfer so seeing your forum name prompted many great memories.

For me the 80s were fabulous and thankfully i can still remember those times..

Scooter wrote:

Just retrieved my old silver rod from back of garage, good condition only issue no markings where to expand to have worn off,  anyone know where I can get the measurement from?

Thanks in advance

Is there any signs of wear, where the jubilee clips and joints were? That's usually how I tell.

resolved faint marks where the clips were working fine....

I have had a sirio half wave silver rod up since I got back into the CB Hobby in August 2022 and I can confirm that it is surprisingly good for DX contacts, but for some reason it is pants at local contacts. There are breakers near me within 10-15 miles, but they must be running burners as I have had ZERO local contacts even running the full 40watts on FM. The silver rod has now been decommissioned as it's being eaten alive by the sea air and the SWR had been very erratic. I'm currently using a Proton PT99 - less noise/static then the Sirio, but I can't get the SWR at the extremes lower than 3.0. Always a trade off it seems....

Edit.

I have a CRT6900 too.