I bought the the 3" monopole with attached BB on top (or bottom) from
Gulf Coast for under $30.00.
I mounted it on a roughly circular (8" diameter) piece of 3mm ply which
I covered with copper tape and then resinned over. I have not tried it
yet, but it should work fine. I think homebuilders are being
taken advantage of with inflated prices for simple stuff. How about
$400 for a couple of op amps in an intercom or $1000 for a headset.
sheesh!
BTW, I done really want to an off topic flame war on EMF. However,
someone dragged in the old urban legend about cancer and all kinds of
health problems from a transponder. Pure nonsense.
There is only a single documented (as opposed to hypothesized and
unsubstantiated) effect of microwave energy. Water absorbs it and when
it does so, it get warm, as in microwave oven. Note however that an
oven is several kilowatts of continuous output inside a reflecting
chamber, whereas the transponder is occasional microsecond pulses,
several watts into free space. I would not want to stand in front of a
radar transmission dish for any length of time but, I think being a few
feet from one of our antenna is safer than being struck by falling space
junk.
PS Family jewels so to speak, are temperature sensitive which is why
they are often outside the body in their own little storage facility.
Ira N224XS (M.S.E.E., M.D.)
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