Radomes

[Stephen Arbogast]

This is  very cool  but I  don't have dome  to  protect it  from  weather ....

Don Latham

Oct 12, 2025, 5:31:16 PM (2 days ago) 

to sara

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rim9VQKrIT8

[Stephen Arbogast]

Any  suggestions?

[Don Latham]

unfortunately not, except for contractor size trashbags and duct tape :-). Don't know about the rf characteristics of black trashbags

I was looking at this for the explorer dish. Which has a very convenient place for a counterweight on back of the feed tube.

Don

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From: "sara" <sara...@googlegroups.com>
To: "sara" <sara...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2025 11:27:57 PM
Subject: [SARA] Re: Radomes

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Don Latham
PO Box 404,
Frenchtown, MT, 59846
406-626-4304

[JERRY TAYLOR]

Tyvek works well.  Per Alex Pettit I cut up a Tyvek suit and used it to cover my yagi 

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[Scott Elliott]

How does XPS Extruded polystyrene, those brightly colored 1/2" to 2" foam construction insulation boards work for a radomes?  Wiki says it has a Refractive index (nD) 1.6; dielectric constant 2.6 (1 kHz – 1 GHz), but given the large entrapped air it seems like it would be less of a "hard edge" that would drive reflections??  

Permittivities εr (1kHz, 24C): 

PTFE/Teflon 2.1; 

Polyethylene/XLPE 2.25; 

Polypropylene 2.2–2.36; 

Polystyrene 2.4–2.7; 

Pyrex (glass) 4.7 (3.7–10); 

Neoprene 6.7; 

Water 80.

[Marcus D. Leech]

On 2025-10-16 12:47, Scott Elliott wrote:

How does XPS Extruded polystyrene, those brightly colored 1/2" to 2" foam construction insulation boards work for a radomes?  Wiki says it has a Refractive index (nD) 1.6; dielectric constant 2.6 (1 kHz – 1 GHz), but given the large entrapped air it seems like it would be less of a "hard edge" that would drive reflections??  

Permittivities εr (1kHz, 24C): 

PTFE/Teflon 2.1; 

Polyethylene/XLPE 2.25; 

Polypropylene 2.2–2.36; 

Polystyrene 2.4–2.7; 

Pyrex (glass) 4.7 (3.7–10); 

Neoprene 6.7; 

Water 80.

I've used it, and haven't had a problem with it at all when using the 1/2" to cover the end of a feed.

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[Stephen Arbogast]

I  think Tyvek is  available in  cloth   sheets  I am  trying to  glue   the   stuff    together   for   a  dome  over my  small  dish.....  still working on  testing...

[duncan campbell-wilson]

Hi,

You might try corflute. Polyethylene  material would be best.  I have used corflute sheet  at 850 MHz with no obvious  degradation of S/N.

Rgds duncan

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