Dragon Super Heavy-Duty SO-239 Stud

With the newer, heavier antennas on the market today, the old standard antenna stud mount may not be up to the job. Standard antenna mirror mounts come equipped with a standard chrome-plated brass stud mount.

Brass is fine for the standard fiberglass whip antennas, but it’s a soft metal, and the threads can strip from constant vibration from these heavy center-loaded antennas. In addition, the large coiled antennas create great wind resistance.

As well as stripped threads, other failures include corrosion to the complete snapping of the mount, taking the antenna with it.

Some of these antennas run up to $150.00 for the high-power specialty aluminum types, which aren’t that heavy, but their open flat coil design does create considerable wind resistance.

The beehive-type stud mount adds strength to the stud supporting with a rubberized plastic beehive-shaped molded section. This material has been known to break down at high power levels and cause a resistive path for the RF signal to arc across.

This has caused intermittent SWR problems that were difficult to locate because the arcing generally occurred either under the mount or inside the beehive mount. These mounts have caused amplifier failure!

The other weak aspect of this type of mount is the treaded portion where the antenna screws in. Still being composed of brass, this is still subject to failure.

The threads will still strip out of these mounts, and if you weren’t paying attention, you could lose your antenna.

With the newer, heavier antennas on the market today, the old standard antenna stud mount may not be up to the job. Standard antenna mirror mounts come equipped with a standard chrome-plated brass stud mount.

Brass is fine for the standard fiberglass whip antennas, but it’s a soft metal, and the threads can strip from constant vibration from these heavy center-loaded antennas. In addition, the large coiled antennas create great wind resistance.

As well as stripped threads, other failures include corrosion to the complete snapping of the mount, taking the antenna with it. Some of these antennas run up to $150.00 for the high-power specialty aluminum types, which aren’t that heavy, but their open flat coil design does create considerable wind resistance.

The beehive-type stud mount adds strength to the stud supporting with a rubberized plastic beehive-shaped molded section. This material has been known to break down at high power levels and cause a resistive path for the RF signal to arc across.

This has caused intermittent SWR problems that were difficult to locate because the arcing generally occurred either under the mount or inside the beehive mount. These mounts have caused amplifier failure!

The other weak aspect of this mount type is the treaded portion where the antenna screws in. Still being composed of brass, this is still subject to failure. The threads will still strip out of these mounts, and if you weren’t paying attention, you could lose your antenna.