| VE7REN |
Rating:      |
2007-02-11 | |
| excellent |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
how can someone give this a 0/5. cmon!!! in all reality this antenna performs very well, considering price. sure there are better,but i guess some people are pretty negative ,wgen in comparison to higher end antennas. believe what you want, this antenna works excellent and will give many yrs of trouble free long haul talking. you cant go wrong with the ar2 ringo!!
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Earlier 5-star review posted by VE7REN on 2005-01-05
have had mine for 3 yrs now with no problems whatsoever.up at 30 ft and can hit repeaters 200km from here!!! no joke.even with all these damn mountains in bc,it works very well.not a beam,but works for the money and space.performs well in sub zero temps and wind,and not an eye sorrer!! |
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| K4JC |
Rating:      |
2006-07-09 | |
| Great antenna for a variety of uses |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
My first Amateur Radio antenna back in 1977 was a Ringo. Living in a large city with access to many repeaters I was able to hit most anything I could hear. Of course, being a greenhorn I really had no experience with any other antennas.
Since then I have tried many other antennas, but I find the AR-2 still holds its own. I use one now for emcomms. The antenna is lightweight, easy to just toss into the car with my "jump kit", and easily slips onto the top of an old music stand-type base. Attach a piece of coax and I am on the air in seconds!
As others have mentioned, it is good for "stealth" operation (I have seen several painted camoflauge colors and hidden in trees.) No, it is not a high-gain heavy hitter, but it can be the difference of being on the air or not! |
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| K9YP |
Rating:     |
2005-08-01 | |
| good for ARES work |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| These little antennas are good to pack in a duffel with some military mast sections, guy wires, etc. I keep a kit with two of these, one at 146 MHz and one at 155 MHz for EMA communication. I use a drive-on (OPAR) base and a hitch receiver base and can turn my little pickup truck into a quick 2-station comm site. Maybe only 3 dB gain, but I can cover my county! Great for ARES/RACES quick deployments. |
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| KB3MFB |
Rating:      |
2005-04-30 | |
| Impressed so far! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I am a newly licensed ham (two days), but am no stranger to RF as I am employed as a Communications Technician for the County 911 radio system.
I got this antenna used and have it TEMPORARILY mounted on a 10 mast on my second floor deck. The tip of the antenna is at about 25 feet.
Using an MFJ Antenna Analyzer, the antenna tunes up with a 1.1:1 SWR across the entire 2 meter band with the exception of about 300 Khz at each band edge, where the SWR rises to 1.2:1. I can see less than 2.1:1 SWR from 137-151 MHz, so I am very happy with its broadbandedness. In the 2 meter band I feed it with 50 watts with barely any reflected needle movement on my Bird 43.
I read about some amateurs having problems with stray RF on the feedline so I wrapped 8-9 turns of my coax around the mast below the antenna and have had zero problems.
As far as ears, this antenna has impressed me so far. From my QTH in southern Lancaster County, PA I can pull in repeaters from Philadelphia, State College, and the Baltimore-Washington area, just about 60 miles in each direction. Perhaps some of that can be lent to my receiver (Icom IC706MKIIG) but the antenna is the most important part of the equation, right?
I made my own pigtail for the coaxial connection for the antenna and permanently heatshrinked the SO-239 connector on the Ringo. This is to me, a small design improvement that will seem to keep some of the weather out.
I was surprise with the bad reviews this antenna received. Maybe I just got lucky, but to me it's not bad for the price!
73
Steve
KB3MFB |
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| W2FDH |
Rating:  |
2005-03-28 | |
| JUNK!!! |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
This antenna is great if you need a dummy load. Great SWR!
73 de Frank
KB2VYZ
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| VA2DJX |
Rating:     |
2004-07-20 | |
| good for basic operation |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
i m very please with this one.
solid antenna
i can hear very far no joke
put it the higher you can that s the secret...
no swr
my better simplez contact 100 kilometre
et voila
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| VE6XL |
Rating:     |
2003-07-28 | |
| Cheap and lasts forever..... |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have been using one of these for quite some time now. I have it mounted 5m up a tower and out roughly 1 meter.
The match is quite low over the entire band and when running 35w I can hit all the local repeaters and even those on the outskirts of town. I am sure there are better verticals, however I doubt anyone would detect a night/day difference. It is not as good as a Yagi/beam by any means.
It is probably one of the strongest antennas I have seen so if wind/harsh conditions are an issue I would recommend this one..... |
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| KC2HIX |
Rating:     |
2003-03-29 | |
| Very Satisfied |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Just installed 2 weeks prior and very pleased with results. Very durable little antenna, very low profile, keeps residential house looking good from street with no huge antenna ontop of house. Works great with repeaters and pretty good on simplex. For only $ 40 bucks, low profile and very sturdy, how can you go wrong? |
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| K9KJM |
Rating:     |
2002-04-04 | |
| TOUGH ANTENNA |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| The original Cushcraft AR-2 antenna has been around a long time now, I have had several up at very high locations, That have not even "wiggled" during very strong winds. They are also at direct "D.C." Ground, Great for using during severe weather conditions. We fondly refer to them as "Air-cooled dummy loads" in the gain department..... Not much of any gain at all over a dipole, But again, VERY tough, and FULLY GROUNDED for safety....... Have not had a failure of any type with these antennas. But do not think that "bigger is better" The other Cushcraft antennas of this family do not have much better gain, and they are much more fragile because of longer length. (Ringo ranger, Ringo Ranger II etc) These longer antennas will fly apart in higher winds........ If you want a really TOUGH antenna with not much gain, get a Cushcraft RINGO AR 2. Also very reasonable price... |
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| WB2WIK |
Rating:     |
2001-08-27 | |
| Wish reviews would be edited |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
First, this is not a "Ringo Ranger" model at all, it's a "Ringo" (without the "Ranger") and is a 30 year-old design with tens of thousands in use worldwide. Considering the entire antenna is built of three pieces of aluminum and a few machine screws, it's amazing how many people install them incorrectly.
The AR-2 is a base-fed half-wave, which means it has a natural feedpoint impedance of thousands of ohms. To match that to 50 Ohm coaxial cable, an extremely critical matching transformer is part of the base assembly. This is the "ring" part of the "Ringo." The tap point on the "ring" is so critical, that if you miss the correct tap point by even 1/16", the antenna will not function. Remember, this is a matching transformer with a transformation ratio of approximately 40 to 1. There's absolutely no room for error in its adjustment.
The reason it's even an adjustable device is to allow the AR-2 to be used over a very broad range of frequencies, from about 110 MHz to 180 MHz. By lengthening or shortening the vertical radiator (which is adjustable by slipping one piece of aluminum tubing inside another and tightening a clamp), and adjusting the tap point on the ring, the AR-2 covers not only the 2m ham band but down into the aviation band (108-136 MHz) and up into the public service mobile-telecommunications band (152 to 174 MHz). A very versatile design, indeed. However, any time the operating frequency is changed by more than 1 or 2 MHz, the ring tap point requires adjustment.
When properly adjusted (check with VSWR bridge, Antenna Analyzer, or other popular and readily available instrumentation) for both length and ring tap point, the AR-2 provides about 0.0 dBd gain over a vertical dipole, which is exactly what it's supposed to do. Exactly. It can do no more, and no less, than this. There's no place for it to lose signal, lose power, dissipate energy, or have any loss. It is all aluminum, and when properly adjusted, 100% of all signal supplied to it will be radiated; same goes for receiving.
73 de Steve WB2WIK/6
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