Saturday, January 19, 2019

19" Radials on the Diamond X50

After reading Runt Radials I ordered some 19" radials from Comet, these also fit the Diamond antennas.

My Diamond X50 came with the 7" radials, and I've had problems with the coax getting "hot" [common mode currents] with RF when using it on 2m.

Here's what the 19" radials look like



Diamond X50 mounted on 2nd level deck. I'm located in the south Puget Sound at 400ft ASL, and have a clear view north towards Seattle (35 miles north), this is a secondary antenna connected to my Kenwood TH-D72 hand held. With 500 mW I can open the 145.190MHz N7GDE repeater located 100 miles north of my location.

While I have not done any form of testing that's scientific, the anecdotal results are slightly better performance on both 2m and 70cm, with the added bonus of the feedline being better decoupled from the antenna on 2m.