Fiberglass vs steel whip

well Id pick Steel to be honest,
fiberglass has the wire twirled around it, Steel is just solid steel.

fiberglass has the wire twirled around it

Sure about that?

Oh, I thought you mean on the inside of the fiberglass.. No, mine is a single peice 102" whip and there's no coil wrapped around it ., to look at it you just see the smooth fiberglass.. I assume it's just a steel whip dipped in fiberglass.
Here's a picture of 2 antennas which are the same thing I have one of: (The brown things are just the cardboard packaging, the white are the ants

They Look nice

but Im not really sure the difference between fibergrass and steel.
Id imagine fiberglass will sway in the wind.

Most skinny glass whips have a copper wire in the center. Take a look at the hex ferrule at the base, and you should be able to tell.

That wire, though much thinner than a solid SS whip, probably works nearly the same. The difference is weight and spring. The FG whip is more common on boats, but there you have a selection for VHF antennas, some of which are like the one I picked up for free amongst a bunch of PVC pipe at the recycle center, which was in its time top-of-the-line Shakespeare VHF Marine antenna, with a factory tuned bronze core about 3/16" dia.

Sooner or later a thin FG whip will weather and the fibres will start to separate from UV exposure. When I pulled the one off my boat, I ended up with hundreds of FG splinters on my forearms, took weeks to get rid of. One pair of jeans still has some in it I think.

SS whips have no such problems. They'll last a lifetime and then some. The caveats are that the RF properties of SS aren't as good as copper or aluminum, plus they need a spring base if they will be bent over significantly (mobile applications) ... IOW, where a thin glass whip can usually be bent as much as you like, a SS whip will eventually get bent. They weigh more, as well.

So you have to look over your situation. In mine, I would opt for a SS whip.

Thanks for the info. I looked at base of mine and see the core, I don't know if it's copper or bronze but it looks at least as thick as whatever size the romex wires use if not thicker. I haven't used this whip for about 5 years and even back then it only was outside a few months, so I'm nowhere near worrying about the glass deteriorating.

Well, since I already have this antenna, and unless there is some disadvantage to it that hasn't been mentioned yet, I see no reason not to use it.. But, if it should be that a ss whip produces better performance, then I would opt to purchase the steel one for $20.

The thing is, as I previously stated, there was some reason why (back then) I decide to get the glass one - and it may of been because a glass whip tends to sway LESS in the wind (?) as well as being less like to get bent - where previously my xmtr was right on the beach where wind tends to be heavier, so perhaps I assumed that a more stationary antenna translated to a more stationary signal.. But to be honest I can't remember exactly why I considered a glass whip to be an advantage - but it was based on a discussion on the community radio forum.

Well anyway, thanks for the inputs

By the way, why don't they manufacture copper 102" whips? Seems like it would be ideal

Copper tarnishes pretty quickly.

True, yet it resists corrosion fairly well ... but not as much as SS. Worse, copper is a non-ferrous metal ... it's relatively soft, low strength-to-weight ratio. It wouldn't take much wind to bend it right over and pretty much stay bent. Compare to SS spring steel, which has high strength-to-weight ratio, and tends to return to straight. There is a debate, but some people with mobile mounts like to use a spring base, but this isn't a concern for you, is it?

Wire wound FG antennas for this discussion are for shortened antenna CB work, usually around 3' - 4', and which are usually tunable. 102" is 1/4 wave for 11 meters (CB). For AM radio purposes, with a matching network, this works considerably better than trying to get a 4' wire-wound antenna to work (102" is already extremely short for mid-band).

Now, I suppose you could get a 102" FG blank and make your own wire-wound antenna for loading. That might work. I've thought about it, with a telescopic tip on top for tuning. You'll have to get into it, make some calculations for number of turns, etc. Essentially, for this case, the winds make the antenna longer, but I don't know what winding over the whole length will do to propagation patterns, etc.

The reason long fiberglass "CB" antennas are no longer being manufactured and marketed is the cost of shipping. New freight and mail regulations that have gone into effect in the last few years have caused the cost of shipping long antennas to go through the roof. Shipping is nearly equal to the total cost of just the antenna. Shakespeare and Francis used to build some of the best long antennas made from fiberglass. Shakespeare moved into marine mobile and cellular antennas and Francis was sold to the folks who own Wilson antennas. And, Wilson stopped making them.

If you can find an old fiberglass half wave base station antenna for CB, the top antenna section is an eight foot, 4-8 inch, fiberglass antenna. Most have a single conductor (copper or beryllium) running through center of the whip. Some of the fiberglass whips were base loaded at the factory for special use.

Because the fiberglass covering on the radiator conductor changed the "velocity factor" of the antennas, fiberglass antennas were a bit shorter than the stainless steel whips. Hamilton Rangemaster AM1000 transmitters are designed to be used with 102 inch stainless steel antennas specifically. The output tuning is specifically designed and certified to work with the long all metal whip (without any coil spring). In the final analysis, there is no substantial advantage to a long fiberglass whip over the stainless steel variety. From, experience, I would avoid the helical-wound short fiberglass CB antennas due to their very low feed-point impedance and the loss of efficiency (high internal resistance) at AM BCB frequencies.

For Marshall ...

"If you can find an old fiberglass half wave base station antenna for CB, the top antenna section is an eight foot, 4-8 inch, fiberglass antenna. Most have a single conductor (copper or beryllium) running through center of the whip."

Can you say if this top section with the beryllium (that's actually what I was thinking of ... Shakespeare uses that) was mounted (standard steel mast threads) to a mast, or lower, section? The older Shakespeare I have (101.5") has the radiator inside, and one of the two lower sections seems to have had something in it, but no more. Looks like some sort of silicone fill up inside the thing with what seems to be a hole through it.

I.e., could there have been a radiator section in the lower section, or is it just a mast which had the cable inside?

The bottom section(s) of these type of antennas are the counterpoise half of a (coaxial) dipole. The top whip section is the other half. Yes, Shakespeare, Francis and Antron made these antennas by the thousands. Remember, I said the fiberglass version of the antenna would be short because of the "velocity factor" (101.5" vs. 102"). Please refer to the ARRL web site search for details on "velocity factor". http://www.arrl.net/

Velocity factor is the speed of a radio wave traveling on a conductor. When the conductor is covered by insulation the wave speed is slower causing the tuned length to be shorter. The VF is expressed as a percentage of a radio wave traveling on a bare conductor in free space.

The 102" whip is an awesome antenna. Which is better? The 102", just by the fact the it is longer than most top loaded (fiberglass)whips, will typically out perform most fiberglass antennas. There are, however, some top-loaded antennas that perform just as well. The SOTT series antenna from Everhardt performs as well as 102" whips. There is always advantages and drawbacks. If one product was the answer, there wouldn't be different styles out there to choose from. It depends on its usage and any other specific limitations that might apply to your system. As far as a barrier to dampen the radiation properties of the antenna, the thin plastic coating around the wire wrapped fiberglass is hardly cause for concern. Placement on the vehicle, proper install, and proper tuning are your biggest concerns. Most of your radiation pattern will be affected by reflection from the counterpoise, ie your vehicle itself. Fiberglass antennas aren't intended for boat usage. Take a look at the majority of semi trucks on the highway. Probably 75% have a co-phase set up of fiberglass whips on the mirrors. The typical boat application (if not for marine radio which is a different band from CB all together) would be a no ground plane antenna intended for use on non-metalic craft which have no metal for counterpoise. Those antennas will get you on the air but with very limity range. There are too many variables in everyone's posts to try and explain them all. But I hope it has at least helped a little.

the discussion was a 8 ft francis whip vs a 9 ft steel whip. and it was decided that the francis was better because it has the phisical properties of a 10 meter antenna and the electrical properties of an 11 meter antenna. 

Thus allowing you to have a more stable SWR over a much wider band with . I had one on an hr2510 and it rocked.