Gotham Memories

[WB6NVH]

An eBay ad jogged my memory of something.  Those of us who have been around awhile will remember Gotham antennas.  The ones in that small ad in the back of QST.  The cheapest vertical, beam and quad kits you could buy, which were still too pricey for a teenager at the time. 

Does anyone remember whatever happened to them?  They seem to have disappeared by the late 1970's.  A friend bought the quad kit and we built it.  Not the best quality, but it went together and did what it was advertised as.

I always wondered how many poor souls bought the single band vertical,  stuck it on a pipe on the back lawn. and then sent 99% of their RF into the septic tank before giving up on ham radio.

[k9jri]

I bought one in 1957 and used it for several years.  The vertical was two 12 foot pieces of tubing that you overlapped by one foot.  It did not even come with a mount other than a couple of metal straps.  They were much like conduit clamps

Mine was mounted on a short 4" X 4" post and had a dozen ( + or - ) buried radials.  I had the version with the extra coil for 80 & 40 but did not use it much.  I had no way to adjust the tap as I couldn't afford an SWR bridge

The funny thing is that my current antenna is a 23 foot vertical with an auto tuner at the base.  My wires are all down as we are having to remove all of the Ash trees in the community due to the Green Ash Bore beetle.   The 23 footer works quite well on 40 through 10 and I am even talking to some of the guys on 75M SSB right now.

It does not work too well on 80M AM as the caps in my remote auto tuner are not heavy enough to carry the high current.  With 25 watts of carrier you can just watch the SWR move up quickly.

I wish I could buy the 23 foot pipe today for what it cost in 1957.   My rig then was a Hallicrafters SX-99 and a Heathkit DX-40.

73 - Mike - K9JRI
   

[k9jri]

I used the Gotham vertical to talk to K4MPY (SK) in Robards, KY every evening on 29.1 mHz. AM.   It was at one of the 29.1 group parties that I met his daughter Dedria.  Some years later we were married and are still happily married today.

The Gotham vertical did help!

73 - Mike - K9JRI

[ke7trp]

Not old enough to remember or own a Gotham but I did buy a huge stack of CQ mags from the 60's and 70s.  In the back there is a full page Gotham add in each magazine. Looks like some neat antennas.

C

[KL7OF]

In 1980 I had a gotham vertical with the funky tapped coil strapped to the chimney on a flat roof duplex on 19th st in the bottom of the westchester lagoon in Anchorage,Alaska....I made a lot of contacts on 10 meters with that thing....No radials..and an FT 101E...I was a satisfied customer...

Note:  I probably didn't need radials because at High tide and a west wind, the salt water from the Cook Inlet would come right up the street...

[Steve - K4HX]

[KM1H]

Never used one but I did stop by the "factory" in Jamaica and later in the Bronx, both in the less ideal areas and strictly storefront and single garage operations. Run by a pair of scruffy looking brothers with last names ending in berg, stein or another ethnic version. Not friendly at all to this 15 year old, I wanted to pick up a 3 el 15 and take home to save on shipping and left empty handed.

Their early verticals were made from EMT tubing, dont know about later.

They later moved to Miami since NY wasnt healthy in the areas they were located.

I did canibalize a 3 el 20 that came down in town and made a nice performing 3el 15.

Carl

[WQ9E]

I am just happy to hear that some people actually had and used stuff from Gotham.  I saw their advertisements every month but I never contacted anybody using a Gotham antenna (or who was willing to admit it anyway and some of the novices I worked described some pretty lousy antennas). 

I felt the same about the Boulevard receiver advertisement that appeared every month in Radio and Television News because I had never seen one in person but now I have one.  Maybe I should try to find a Gotham antenna to use with it

[K1JJ]

Funny posts.

OK, here's the goods attached below.  If you were a ham in the late 50's or 60's, these Gotham ads got the juices flowing, for cheap!



My testimonial:  [It was never used in a Gotham ad for some odd reason]

In Dec., 1964, I called CQ for three days straight on 3716 CW using a Gotham vertical without a single reply.  First time on the air as a Novice with a DX-20.  The antenna was 3' from the side of the house, outside my bedroom window mounted on a steel pipe without radials. The top was guyed to the roof with a bare wire, essentially grounding all RF output.  Duh... I didn't know any better.   On the forth day, a General 5 miles away listened on 3716 but could not hear me. I was frustrated, to say the least.

I brought it back to the ham store and the salesman axed me where I bought that piece of crap. He had forgotten he had sold it to me used, the week before...  

T

[Steve - K4HX]

Is K6INI the Champion DX operator?

Yes, he worked some DX (probably 90% on 10 meters) at the peak the best sunspot cycle in the 20th century.  

[W4AMV]

Boy I had a Gotham vertical a loooong time ago when I lived in Miami Beach where their sales office was located. I lived on a canal so had clear access to the water. Added one radial to the Gotham and on 40 still could not work a sole. Then I had this crazy idea, disconnect the vertical and just drive the radial. First CQ on 50 W CW returned Niagra Falls! Now is that crazy!  Some very crazy products came out of S. FL.

[Carl WA1KPD]

One of their ads used to list PY5ASN (43 years later I remember that call!) as a DX station worked on a Gotham vertical. I worked him on 15 on my 40 meter dipole and felt I had worked a very famous person.
Carl
.KPD

[wa2dtw]

I used one back in '59-'60.   The "no-radials" G160 was mounted outside my 2nd story shack window in the Bronx, with the loading coil within reach of the alligator clip.   I fed it with a Globe King 400B.  Got a 57 report from all the way across the East River from Queens on 75 meters!

[k4kyv]

You probably would have got a better report using a light bulb.  Those things had to be the biggest piece of crap ever foisted on unsuspecting novice hams. No doubt they contributed to the unwarranted reputation that verticals "radiate equally poorly in all directions".

"No radials necessary" my arse!

[ke7trp]

They had to use the coax for the other side of the antenna right?

[WA2ROC]

I remember carrying 2 12 foot sections of either steel or aluminum tubing home from the electric supply store on my bicycle in about 1962.  Used some B&W coil stock, a piece of 4X4 next to the side of the house and drove a piece of water pipe into the ground at first for a "ground".  Later I added several buried radials but this thing was right next to the house, maybe even fastened to an eave at the top, and the next door neighbor's house was maybe 15 feet away.

I can visualize the radiation pattern to be either straight up or straight down.

Yes, I actually worked several other stations, but they were all local friends, maybe 5 miles away at most.  I did have an SWR meter and "tuned" the coil taps for as low an SWR as possible.

You also have to realize that you can "tune" a dummy load or a light bulb for minimum SWR too!

Needless to say, it came down really soon afterwards, replaced by a tri-band trap vertical on the peak of the roof.  That one worked a whole lot better.

[WA1GFZ]

Back in '67 or '68 I was on vacation at the beach. Down the street a few houses from my new place a family was renting a cottage. I spotted a gotham beside the cottage so banged on the door. The kid had a TR3 and we became quick friends working all kinds of DX on 20 meters that week. Never saw him again and don't remember his call. I should check my old logs to see if I ever put anything in them back in the days that you could be jailed and tortured if you didn't have a complete log because the FCC knew all. We were only a couple feet above the water table and the gothham was close to resonant on 20. I remember the guy had this monster coax for low loss. The center conductor looked like #10 solid copper.

[KM1H]

A long enough coax on the second floor would have completed the circuit

[Pete, WA2CWA]

We laugh at the Gotham vertical antenna but back in the 60's, there were a number of retailers and manufacturers selling similar type antennas (i.e. no radials required). Lafayette had one (stock no. 40-0104, why do I remember these things, for $14.95), Hy-Gain sold similar ones, Radio Shack had one, Olson had one, and probably several others.

[K5WLF]

We laugh at the Gotham vertical antenna but back in the 60's, there were a number of retailers and manufacturers selling similar type antennas (i.e. no radials required). Lafayette had one (stock no. 40-0104, why do I remember these things for $14.95), Hy-Gain sold similar ones, Radio Shack had one, Olson had one, and probably several others.

I never had a Gotham, but I keep wondering when I read the stories if this one is possibly the new incarnation of the old Gotham.

http://cometantenna.com/newPro_detail.php?ID=234

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Here's the instruction sheet for the Gotham vertical, in case anyone wants to know the complex details involved. Hopefully it won't cause nightmares or flashbacks for you, Tommy.  

[K1ZJH]

Oh gawsh!!!  Gotham Verticals!!  My only experience was back in high school!
My of my classmates was a newly licensed Novice, as was I, and started off on
80 meters using a Gotham Vertical, with a buried radiator filled with saltwater as his
"ground."    We literally spent days (mid afternoon!!!) blindly calling CQ using his
HX-11 Heathkit transmitter, and never received a reply!  I wonder how many hams
ended their ham careers as novices while endlessly calling CQ, and never receiving a
reply while using a Gotham? 

Pete