Dog Bone Strain insulators, also known as “dog bones”, are perfect for insulating wire antennas, such as dipoles, cubical quads, hexbeams, anywhere you need to keep your antenna wire taut and isolated.
NOTE: Discounts available in quantity.
The dogbones are used in the following antennas but not limited to: Dipoles, Inverted Vees, End Fed, Slopers and Long Wires.
Use these to insulate the ends of your wires making up your ground plane on elevated vertical antennas. Be sure to use strong, black, dacron guy rope along with them! With the black dacron guy rope and these UV proof insulators, your antenna should be up for a VERY long time.
These insulators are made of a glazed, high temp ceramic and not the cheap nylon. Being amateur radio operators for over 30 years and having built dozens of antenna and with dozens of field day emergency setups under our belts we wanted to make the best dogbones on the market and mainly for our own use =). In our experience the ceramic insulators perform SO much better than any other material for dogbone insulators. The nylon types become softer when heated by either the sun OR the RF radiating from the wire antenna. We have used the nylon types and after a few hours of hard contesting after setting up antennas for hours prior, it is insult to injury when the nylon dogbone insulator literally pulls apart and down comes the wire antenna. After that, we said “NO MORE”! Ceramic was the ONLY way to go.
Insulators are approximately 2-3/8 inches in length with the diameter about 1 inch. Ribbed construction of the insulator provides increased surface path to reduce RF leakage. Holes measure approximately 0.314″ inches in diameter to accept antenna wire and rope up to 5/16″ thick! The holes are on either end of the insulator to eliminate antenna wire overlap to help with RF interaction of the antenna and support rope.
The formula for building dipole antennas is 468/Freq (in MHz) and then divide by 2 to get each leg length, ie: for 40 meters it would be something like 468/7.050 for 66.38ft/2 = 33.2 feet per leg. For a Inverted Vee antenna deduct about 5% from each leg’s length.
About Max-Gain Systems, Inc.
Max-Gain Systems, Inc. carries a full line of in-series, between series, right angle, T-shaped, quick connect, handie-talkie (BLACK), pigtails (coaxial jumpers), etc… RF adapters. Our RF adapter lines are constantly expanding. We keep our RF connector and adapter lines in stock. We ship both retail and wholesale quantities. To become a dealer / wholesale user, contact us with your potential usage.
Max-Gain Systems, Inc. is the number one supplier of fiberglass round hollow tube, square tube and round solid rod to the antenna manufacturing industry. We produce millions of feet a year for hundreds of different industries including but not limited to: marine / boating, aeronautical, agriculture, construction, emergency services, etc…. We have the unique ability to sell one piece or even a semi-truck full. Feel free to prototype using our fiberglass tube and rod then contact us for a quote on a production run. At production run quantities we can cut to your desired lengths at no additional charge, and we can also perform several different fabrications (example: drilling holes in precise locations along a tube) to ensure your delivered material is ready for assembly. We have several accessory items designed for our fiberglass including but not limited to: couplers, telescoping clamps, ferrules, etc…
