[TowerTalk] Vertical dipole other choices?

[john at kk9a.com]

Your manufacturing price guessestimate seems reasonable. I have built  
a lot of antennas and it is not a huge savings over commercially built  
ones. I am sure that manufactures get mill pricing and better hardware  
pricing with quantity.  Don't forget that there are need add-ons to  
the Greyline antenna so this system can easily cost $1500

There does appear to be a market for this antenna and it is an  
improvement for those with attic dipoles, etc.  Those users will  
likely not notice the inflated website claims, they would just be  
happy to receive the product that the paid for.

If I needed a multiband aesthetically pleasing antenna I would  
strongly consider a SteppIR vertical for ~$2k. It requires ground  
radials but they quickly become invisible.

John KK9A



jimlux wrote:

If you price out commercial flagpoles they're a good fraction of a
kilobuck - the base mount, all the hardware, etc..  And they're a lot
bigger in diameter than the usual ham antenna. I don't know how big the
greyline unit is, but the flagpoles that are rated for 70 mi/hr with no
flag are 3 1/2" at the bottom tapering to about 1 7/8" at the top and
1/8" walls.

It's probably not the "thin wall nested tubing with hose clamps" one
sees with the usual ham vertical like my 6BTV.

They don't say on their website what the tubing is.. But looking at the
pictures where someone is assembling it, it kind of looks like about 2"
diameter and reasonably thick wall (1/8").

Someone's got to make all the insulators and fittings.  Is it $1000
worth? Clearly not, from a raw material standpoint.  However, 30 feet of
2" OD, 1/8" wall 6061 tubing is about $400. 2" Sch 80 aluminum pipe is
about $500 for 30 feet.

by the time you add some suitable fiberglass tubing (which I used to buy
for about the same price as aluminum in the same size), 20 feet of
ladder line (another $20), various bolts and stuff, you're probably up
to around 500-600 before machining and packaging.

Then, you have to cut it, drill holes, cut notches, and then put it in a
box, it looks like you've probably got $100 in labor into it.

And the flag, pulley, halyards and eagle or ball.

He's paying the shipping on a 50 lb or so box.

At that, he's probably got a gross margin around 30%, assuming he's not
paying rent.

ALl in all it's not exactly a rip-off - it's a "paying for someone else
to scrounge up the parts and put them in a box with the right holes
drilled in it"

It's sort of like the Alpha Delta DX-CC multiband dipole - yeah, it's a
bunch of pieces of PVC rod with holes drilled in it, a couple hundred
feet of wire, and some connectors and insulators.  Yet, it's $180.
You could buy the hardware, without the wire and PVC for $30.

You're paying for "kitting"  In general, I've found that it's cheaper
for someone else to do all the scrounging and gathering and machining,
if I'm not counting my time as free.


I don't know that people are complaining about the *design* of the
greyline vertical, more about the company's business practices.