Hey Marconi,
- Grab another cup o'coffee, your about to enter the no-brevity zone... :roll:
OK that's bizarre the performance of the SD and I-10K are so similar in your tests, except for the guy who heard the I-10K and couldn't hear the SD.
If I would've received such similar results I would've either changed coax to the Penetrator, sold it and replaced it with another, or taken it completely apart in an attempt to discern what went wrong!
The results here from an SD AstroPlane, Big Stick and Ringo were all so similar and so far below the Penetrator and Sigma5/8 I never kept any as I considered them truly inferior and sold each and every one asap after testing to reassure myself the Penertrator was supreme.
I kept the Ringo for camping after I tired of removing the Penetrator from the 5 section mast everytime I went camping.
I'll have to scan a pic from 1975 with Mom & Dad and the Penetrator erected next to the Motorhome at Seacliff Beach, Ca. My 10-speed is also in the pic. Good times...
I tried a Sigma5/8 which I sold after testing against the Penetrator and which eventually made it's way back to me from my friend Donn, and found it to be neck & neck in performance, even possibly a quarter needle's width better on RX and a quarter needle's width worse on TX (tit for tat) but basically identical and yet preferred the Penetrator due to the heavier-duty costruction, especially of the radials.
At the time I thought it a cheap way out to use 12guage solid stock for the last 30" or so due to the ease of bending if a large bird flew into it at night or even tried to perch there.
I always tested with the same mast, (about 55' to the hub) coax and radio and as close together time-wise as possible. And I used a few consistent contacts with the best meters and greatest distances I could find.
I tried to stay away from people with newer soldistate rigs as the good old tuber rigs seemed to have the best meters, not the type which made almost everyone sit on S-9. I usually picked another Johnson Messenger 223, 124, or a Golden Eagle which had an awesome meter, once it stopped swinging back & forth like a pendulum... on those I'd have to hold the dead key for a good 6-8 seconds.
Everyone loved it when I went to test another antenna, I was sort of the local antenna test center. I'd even get requests!
Before I forget, there was another antenna which performed equal to the Penetrator & Sigma5/8, the Taylor Grandslammer. It was a coil fed .64 and like the R/S .64 (for which I make a kit to mod it into a real Penetrator) was an XLNT performer... until the coil fried from power!
Except for the coil, that antenna was the best of the best as it was all 6061-T6 aluminum and was a friggin fishing pole in the wind but came right back to straight once the wind stopped.
I have a fun story (I'll bore everyone with someday) about snapping a guy wire in a storm and the neighbor next door pounding on our front door at 1:30 am to tell us my antenna was keeping him awake as it kept slapping his roof!
6061-T6 is amazing schtuff.
Hey, many thanks for sharing your test results!
73
