OT: What's This Antenna For?

[DerbyDad03]

I was driving behind an old Volvo (early 90's I'd guess) that had a platform on top made from an old fashion bolt-on car top carrier and piece of 3/4 ply almost as big as the roof of the car.

Mounted in the middle of this platform was an antenna, about 12" - 18" tall and shaped kind of like a football standing on end but squattier

- not as round as a basketball, but not as elongated as a football - somewhere in between. It had a solid bar in the middle and 4 curved rods at 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees that gave it it's shape. It appeared to be pretty old, like something from a 60's sci-fi flick.

Anybody know what this style of antenna is used for?

[hallerb]

Probably a amatuer (ham) antenna, having gone to lots of hamfests they have all sorts of wierd antennas on vehicles

[Sanity]

Early 90's? UFO contact.

[Roemax]

[Pete C.]

What was the call sign on the license plate?

[Davej]

Maybe it was some sort of old fashioned or homebrew GPS antenna.

[Oren]

That just changed my day. All this time I thought a hamfest was about food:)

Oren

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[dicko]

It could have been an eggbeater antenna....

-dickm

[HeyBub]

Directional locator for unauthorized spy transmitters.

You see 'em all the time used by the Gestapo in WW2 movies. You've probably got terrorists in your neighborhood.

[Roger Grady]

It sounds like a quadrafilar helix, for somewhere around the 2 meter (144-148Mhz) ham band. It's an antenna that produces circular polarization and is omnidirectional, useful for receiving signals from satellites. There are amateur radio satellites that operate in the 2m band, or it might have been to receive weather satellite pictures at around 137 Mhz.

The same type of antenna is commonly used for GPS receivers but because the GPS system operates at a much higher frequency, the antennas are only a few inches long.

Roger Grady [e-mail] To reply by email, remove "qlfit." from address

[G. Morgan]

Is this it?

[iwonttell]

So when you want to beat some eggs you just flip the car on it's roof? Oh well, it could be worse. It could be a meat beater !!!!