We’re having an extension built and I had to clear out one of the sheds. In there I found a pair of mobile antennas that are probably 30 years old. Both came from Sandpiper Aerials (or was it Sandpiper Antennas) who were located in S. Wales. Both antennas got lots of use in the past till I got a car without gutters and could no longer easily mount mobile antennas. Into the shed they went and managed to survive a house move.
Now I have a little VNA here so I could set them up and play with the VNA to “tune” them back when fitted to the car. But I thought why not just ask Sandpiper if they still have the instructions. That’s when I hit a snag. It looks like Sandpiper closed down in 2021.
Now I remember the guy running Sandpiper was licenced and called Mark but that’s it. So it’s always worth asking the SOTA hive-mind if anyone can remember who ran Sandpiper and if they have any contact info? Or maybe unlike me, they kept the instructions to their Sandpiper mobile antenna and it’s the same as mine. Well if you don’t ask you wont find out!
It’s possible someone knows and then I can email Mark and he can tell me it was 30+ years ago and no he doesn’t have the designs! Or maybe he’ll say sure and a PDF or two will turn up.
One is a dual 5/8 colinear for 70cm and the other is a dual band 2m/70cm, a 5/8 for 2m and dual 5/8 colinear for 70cm.
Yup, that’s because they ceased trading 2 years before.
The list of names fits what is crystallising in my memory. When I started there was an older guy at the rallies and younger guy. The old guy was the father and he was the ham and Marc was his son who obviously took over. I’ll have a look and see if those addresses are business addresses, maybe solicitors or domestic addresses.
I can’t find any manuals for VHF/UHF aerials from Sandpiper online but it looks like they also produced some HF verticals.
Do you have the model numbers Andy, that might find a scanned version of the instruction sheet online.
Andy, did you ever get the manual(s) for your Sandpiper 2m / 70cm collinears? If not, I recall Radioworld used to sell them and it might be worth contacting them to see if they still have them in their document archives.
I think they also managed to take any remaining stock , so theres a chance (if small after so long) that they could have some bits and pieces knocking around.
I know they had some of the traps for the vertical I had until around 18 months ago as I almost ordered a set for spares.
Funny you should mention that. With warmer-weather activations in mind and the potential in the coming months to take my Sandpiper 3el 2m Yagi instead of the vertical J-pole for the 2m SSB/CW Challenge, this afternoon – on this glorious Spring day - I’ve been checking mounting and guying the Yagi on a shortened version of my 5m pole, e.g. can I rotate the pole/Yagi combo 360 degrees sitting in my chair at the base of the pole without snagging the guying cords? [Yes].
My back garden is in a dip so I didn’t expect to hear anything much other than the local repeater. So, it was a surprise flipping through the FT817’s frequency memories to hear the GB3NGI 2m beacon (on 144.482MHz) 237km away from me in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. There probably was a high / lift today to hear it in a such a VHF-unfriendly spot.
BTW: does anyone know of a mechanical device (maybe with a lever?) which will rotate the Yagi boom through 90 degrees for quick switching between horizontal and vertical polarisation? At present, I would have to loosen the U-clamp on the back of the boom, pull the boom out and rotate it, then push it back in and re-clamp. A bit of a faff.
I have seen this done with a lever and a spring return, with a rope down to ground level to operate it. Basically the lever got pulled from +45 degrees to -45 degrees to rotate the boom 90 degrees. (A counterweight on the other side would eliminate the need for a spring.)
Wrapping the rope a few turns around the boom and forming an endless loop down to ground level would also permit adjustment from your chair.
