Super Scanner 11m CB Antenna TEST

2000 miles away and YES the 120° antenna lobes are quite noticeable

[@scottlee1211]

I use to run one for years…on a 60’ telephone pole, never had any issues…then one night lightning took it out! I loved it! Wish someone would put them back in production. Thanks for your videos…love the Eagles, I have a Mark IV.

You could build one with a bit of time and an antenna design handbook from the library.. I would suggest using PVC tubing and put wire inside.. Trick will be finding the 3 or 4 outlet 90's but I bet someone makes them.. A junction box in the center to hold the 3 or 4 position relay or a rotor to turn the thing and you would have the elevated phased verticals.. Personally I would go for the 4x version and make it rotatable because you could make 3 elements 1.05 wavelength reflectors giving you an even tighter directed signal.. If I recall correctly they were spaced .1 or .15 wavelengths apart.. The reason they don't make these anymore for CB including some of the others like the 5/8 wave groundplane is law suits from idiots hurting or killing themselves when putting them up.. In the same token you could use 3 Antron 99 fiberglass antennas and would just have to mount them to aground plane plate that was5 to 7 foot across..

[@jeffdurall8353]

I remember my dad had this antenna and a Browning Golden Eagle when I was very young. I can still remember him talking on it. Still have the Golden Eagle.

[@nc4tn]

These were really ahead of their time.

[@421CentralIowa]

I love it when a plan comes together!

[@n5ifi]

I ran one for years too during a time when their was a ground plane up on every house and what I liked the best about the antenna was how quickly you could tell where someone was. I lived outside of town a ways and with one element pointed south and the other two pointed NE and NW all you had to do was flip and watch the s meter. If they were strongest on south element and there was no change between signals NW and NE they were due south of you. If they were the same signal on the NW element and South element and down on the NE element they were in between those two elements. We had people jacking with us all the time and you could id them quickly.

[@CrawldaBeast]

I ran one back in the late 80s. It seemed like a bit of a gimmick at first but was a great antenna. The directional modes worked and there was a noticeable null in the off direction. The omni mode was every bit as good (maybe better) as any 5/8 ground plane out there. I was able to use it on 10m as well when I got my ham license. I don't have anything bad to say about this antenna.

[@Arnold7221]

Again great hands on Video, thank you. Ran a scanner Antenna not the super scanner with omni direction capability. It worked quit well and miss it. After hearing the local guys talk about how great they worked talking to skip stations, we decided to make and test it. Well found the relay Box and controller box in my junk pipe. Cleaned up all the elements and we are going to put it up and test it. The Super Scanner Antenna uses two elements to transmit on, and one element used as a reflector. And all 3 elements for the Omni. This is driving a designing of a 4 element Type scanner antenna. The trick will be the impedance matching. More to follow. Jay

You would need a couple relays and a couple of 1/4 wave 75 ohm coax matching cables but I would think that it would not be that great in omni mode.. I would also think that there would be one driven element and two reflectors or directors as is done with phased verticals that are ground mounted..

[@SDS-1]

Yup, ive rebuilt several of them. Grand dad used one in Houston as sanjacinto React president.

[@blindflips4951]

I used to run one of them back in the day and it was excellent for Transformer noise you can turn away and sensitize the noise and still not lose the station you were talking to they were great for that

[@richardrichard8741]

Interesting video, thanks.

This is an interesting design based on phased verticals and I have seen them in two three and four element verities.. Some were rotatable to direct the signal and others were switchable where you could via a coax relay switch change which element was the driven one.. At one or two wavelengths up these were as good as a cubical quad but much smaller in overall size..

[@olivertaylor8788]

HAD 2 OF THEM,BEST ANTENNA EVER MADE IN MY BOOK.THEY DONT AGE WELL..AND THEY LOVE LIGHTNING.WHEN MY LAST ONE GOT KIT 2 YEARS AGO,I JUST QUIT RADIOING AND PACKED IT ALL UP..

[@1OFGODSOWN]

I had two of them over the years and they were just OK at best.I had a STARDUSTER that kicked its butt.The advantage was when using it as a beam it did provide some rejection off the sides.It was a good idea in the design but it should have had at least 4 different directions and not 3.As I recall some would take High Power and some would not.Both of mine took the D&A Phantom just fine.

[@user-yc8hr2tm4u]

Four direction?? No that would be a reflection nightmare getting reflective quality from three directions it would be like trying to set up antenna inside a steel building.....an swr nightmare!!! Only two reflectors at time cause far less bouncing around

[@1OFGODSOWN]

@@user-yc8hr2tm4u another company made one that had 6 directors as I recall but I can’t remember what it was called or who made it.

[@1OFGODSOWN]

@@user-yc8hr2tm4uyou null out the element that you don’t need.It’s very simple since it used electronic switching. There was another company that made either a 6 or 8 element version as I recall.It was never as popular.It may have been Hi-Gain but I can’t remember?

[@WPGinterceptor460Interceptor]

I had one of these, had a control box with it! worked ok.. usually point the 1 element north and the other 1 southwest and other southeast.. or run all 3 together!

[@Z28videogates]

Impressive difference but would need more info on what he's calling a "ground plane" to really know if it's a "fair" test. When I did a back to back signal test it was a local test (not DX). It was a 5/8 wave vs. Super Scanner with exactly the same height and same coax (took antenna down and 1/2 hour later put the other antenna up). The Super scanner was S7 in the directional mode for best signal towards me and the 5/8 wave was about S7.5 or a 1/2 S unit stronger. The other two directions were even weaker than S7 so in my test, the Super scanner totally lost to the 5/8 wave MacoV58. Antenna height for both was about 75 feet at the base for both (it was on a 70 foot 4 section crank up). I love antenna testing! It's interesting the results really can vary.

[@s9radio]

He meant to say he was running in the omnidirectional mode.

[@Z28videogates]

OK gots it@@s9radio

[@user-yc8hr2tm4u]

You do know one full s unit gain is actually 3db gain so a half s increase is less than a single DB gain air humidity can easily cause that difference I got in on a k40 test against fire stick original in the 1970s two similar cars antennas mounted on trunk lip center first the fire stick and when it reached range the car with the k40 took over and went 12 miles farther

[@s9radio]

@@user-yc8hr2tm4u not exactly a scientific test. And yes I'm well aware of path loss but to be a valid test you really would have needed a huge piece of sheet metal preferably round with one antenna mounted on top of it and the capability to raise & lower the antenna as the takeoff angle varies greatly from one design to another. In other words one antenna might kick ass 4 ft off the ground when the other prefers to be 5 ft off the ground and trust me, based on soil conductivity this makes a huge difference. Soil is like a big sponge that absorbs RF unless you have extremely high soil conductivity or on the water. 73-Gregg s9radio When I'm at the test range which I have hundreds of hours logged, we use an identical soap Port structure and try to conduct the test within minutes of each other as path loss even at a test distance of 500 ft can change drastically over a very short time span. We also use 1/4 spike antennas prior to each antenna cast doing what is called normalizing of both the coax and the actual path loss making them invisible to the actual test data.

[@user-yc8hr2tm4u]

@@s9radio I have known the earth condition quite well I know an operator on the Illinois Iowa, Wisconsin border and I am more or less central wis over 100 miles air miles ant to ant his antron was up a pine tree with 16 12' ground grid buried just under surface( so he wouldn't mow it ) and to actually make it up here he had to hose down the ground grid just before he talked and knew if he started losing contacts he had to hose down land agaiN sometimes hosed more on one side of tree and talked further that direction

[@robriot6882]

I got one of those out in my yard with the control box in my closet.....Hmmm

[@Radionut]

If anybody needs any parts for a super scanners I’ve got a pile of them in my storage building. No complete ones just parts of several what do you need

[@brianpeterson9923]

Would love to buy this from you, If you're interested in selling it.

[@pcostadias]

How does it compare To a 5/8 vertical in local contacts?

[@CrawldaBeast]

I ran one in the late 80s. I would run it in omni mode for the evening rag chews and get out great. There was one operator who was about 15 miles away that would complain that I would pack his receiver, so I would switch to to directional and put him in the null. That being said, the omni mode is every bit as good or better than a 5/8 ground plane. In omni all 3 dipoles are active and pushing away from each other.

[@s9radio]

The Super Scanner is a directional antenna unless it's in the ground-plane mode. The Super-Scanner has more surface area and should be the clear winner in most cases. A comment made here says the Super Scanner blows his 5/8 away, however like any antenna test there are lots of variables to consider, soil conductivity, height above ground, structure in the near-field radiation pattern and a host of other things that can influence test results. 73 - Gregg s9radio