What was your favorite antenna growing up and how did it perform?

[De_Wildfire]

What was your favorite antenna growing up and how did it perform? Back when I was a teenager, I had a big stick antenna and a PDL2 Quad for 11 meters. I used a TRAM D201A running 12 watts on those antennas. It worked well into Europe, Russia, South America, Africa and Australia. Yes, I did utilize the 11 meter band very well.

[Swamp Rat]

My favorite antenna back in the day was Avanti's Astroplane ,followed by the original Starduster by Antenna Specialists .

[MDYoungblood]

My favorite was the Avanti (Antenna Specialist) Sigma II (model AV-170), I had it mounted on the far side of the house and later bought a Avanti Moonraker IV (model AV-140) on a 40ft American Tower, CDE Ham IV rotor mounted inside the tower on a Rohn rotor plate and a thrust bearing (homemade) at the tower top. Still have the Sigma but the Moonraker succumb to a ice storm back in the late 70's. The parts were used to make several different antennas over the years.

3's

Greg

[De_Wildfire]

Swamp Rat and MDYoungblood.......Those antennas bring back good memories. All the neighborhoods around me back in the day had all those antennas around. Everyone back in the day had to to have an antenna different than everyone else and compete that that.

[443 Arizona]

i did alot of experimenting with antenna' way back when but the ones i loved the most were , for mobile , was the 4' center-loaded Hustler.
then for a base was the Hy~Gain 5/8 wave.
each performed very well

[Windwalker]

I didnt grow up until I was almost 30 !
I loved the telescopic antenna with the center load that came with my first walkie talkie. Just the old school antenna.
I have also been partial to a 1/4 wave whip. Tried and true for sure.
I did have an Antron99 mounted about 80 feet to the tip and it worked well. I could hear a pin drop all over the world but it was really a fragile antenna and I had to replace it due to weather, wind damage. I did try the ground plane kit for the antron99 but it didnt seem to make much of a difference.

WW Global

[De_Wildfire]

Besides the PDL2 quad, I also had great performance with the old Shakespear Big Stick antenna. Loved that vertical too. In the car, my favorite antenna was the Wilson 1000 mag mount which was nice because I could throw it in the trunk and keep it out of site when going to malls and shopping centers. The Wilson1000 was a performer with my President HR2510 and a Texas Star brick under the seat back in the day shooting DX into Europe.

[Stoneman]

Mine was the Maco M103, loved that lil beam...Also had the ole Antron 99 on the other side of the trailer...Good Timez...

[Mentor3006]

I've never had a base station radio so I can't make any claims on them. For mobile growing up we had a Radio Shack mag mount on my parents Vega Wagon that was complete fertilizer.
My first antenna on my own was a fiberglass stick antenna like a FireStik but different brand that I got from the JC Whitney catalog. It was a 5' and it had lights that would chase up and down the antenna when it was keyed up. I hated it shortly after getting it...

A friend clued me into 102 Stainless Steel whips, and I got one from Radio Shack...

Been crazy about them ever since...

[Stoneman]

I've never had a base station radio so I can't make any claims on them. For mobile growing up we had a Radio Shack mag mount on my parents Vega Wagon that was complete fertilizer.
My first antenna on my own was a fiberglass stick antenna like a FireStik but different brand that I got from the JC Whitney catalog. It was a 5' and it had lights that would chase up and down the antenna when it was keyed up. I hated it shortly after getting it...

A friend clued me into 102 Stainless Steel whips, and I got one from Radio Shack...

Been crazy about them ever since...

Yeah those 102 whips were good when ya got those SWR's dialed in, I remember going thru the drive thru's in the bank..They didn't like it much when I keyed the mic with the 250 with the antenna bent over...

[DoubleR]

Growing up, we had a HyGain 5 element Long John beam which was about 10 ft off the roof and setup for horizontal skip. Later dad put up a HyGain Big Gun 2, 4 element quad on a 60 ft tower. As I recall, the quad was the batter of the two. Great gain and f/b ratio plus was able to go vertical or horizontal with the flip of a switch. We had to completely rebuild the quad after the tower fell while cranking it up. Back then aluminum tubing was cheap and readily available at the local surplus shop. Would cost a small fortune to rebuild today.

[RFHobbyist]

This beauty here (Note: Internet pic, not mine). Radio Shack's Archer "Super Maxim" halfwave groundplane. I received it, 10 feet of mast, 50 feet of RG-58 coax, and an SWR meter all on my 14th birthday. Fed by the Cobra 85 that I'd gotten the previous Christmas, she did well enough around my end of Dallas County.

She suffered a bend in the upper radiator during the ice storm of 1978 (no change in SWR, even after my father drove a length of aluminum tubing over the bend to straighten it).

I still have the SWR meter and the Cobra 85, but when I married (young, and dumb -- more DUMB than young!) I sold the antenna, coax, masting, and a Cobra 29GTL I was running at that moment.

I'd love to find another, complete, and in good condition.