A99 VS. I MAX CHOICE AT IMPROPER HIGHT

[222DBFL]

Good deal. Yep, and it's not that big a deal to replace your antennas it's seems the way you have it mounted. I had the A99 and it just was a POS, that's JMO. My tornado is about a step up but nothing to brag about. But it does work way better than the A99. I went from having to use a 4 pill to talk to my locals about 50 miles away to about 50 watts on my tornado. Antennas were at the same height. One day when you are bored, give that iMax a try, ya never know!! Have a good one and God Bless.

 

[hotrod]

Good deal. Yep, and it's not that big a deal to replace your antennas it's seems the way you have it mounted. I had the A99 and it just was a POS, that's JMO. My tornado is about a step up but nothing to brag about. But it does work way better than the A99. I went from having to use a 4 pill to talk to my locals about 50 miles away to about 50 watts on my tornado. Antennas were at the same height. One day when you are bored, give that iMax a try, ya never know!! Have a good one and God Bless.

best way to compare antennas is use the same mast,pipe,tower. so if y use say 20 feet on the a99 then use same on imax. changing the height on shorter antenna makes the test void .there are many variables some ya can control like the height of the bottom of antenna and reguardless of the height you have/ or can use keep this equal then you,ll see a small difference

 

[Stellasstillarat]

Your saying 'your" tornado works much better than "your " a99 and I don't doubt you for a second but this may be the opposite at someone else's qth. someone changing from their a99 to a tornado may not see the same results you did. They may find the a99 workef better for them.

Good deal. Yep, and it's not that big a deal to replace your antennas it's seems the way you have it mounted. I had the A99 and it just was a POS, that's JMO. My tornado is about a step up but nothing to brag about. But it does work way better than the A99. I went from having to use a 4 pill to talk to my locals about 50 miles away to about 50 watts on my tornado. Antennas were at the same height. One day when you are bored, give that iMax a try, ya never know!! Have a good one and God Bless.

 

[Stellasstillarat]

that definitely makes sense. Before I do any comparison. I'm going to add extra 5 feet of mast leaving the a 99 at the top of those four 5 foot mast. As this will be the higest hight i can go without compromising the masts in strong gusty winds.
I'm going to take notice if there is any difference betweent the three 5' mast and four 5 foot mast with the a99 in place.
The consensus seems to be that an extra 5 feet isn't going to maken any difference.
I will use it like that for a month or so and then I will remove the a99 and relace it with thr imax 2000. If I do get better recived signals with the a99 ,I'm going to have to assume the I max 2000 may do even better. The only reason for going through this is to get is trying to get a better incoming signal. My transmitted signal gets out fine. Locally and worldwide contacts without issue.

best way to compare antennas is use the same mast,pipe,tower. so if y use say 20 feet on the a99 then use same on imax. changing the height on shorter antenna makes the test void .there are many variables some ya can control like the height of the bottom of antenna and reguardless of the height you have/ or can use keep this equal then you,ll see a small difference

 

[Needle Bender]

The Imax is a 5/8 wave and about 23' tall above the mounting base.
The A99 is less than a 1/2 wave at about 16.5' above the mounting base.

If you switch from the A99+20' pole (36.5') to the Imax+15' pole(38') you should see about 1.5-2 CB S-meter units improvement.
I did.
Several times.

I much prefered the performance of the full 18' Proton99 to the A99, but the P99 construction is wimpy.
I saw at least a full S-unit improvement from the A99 to the Proton99 and .5+ S-U improvement from the P99 to the I2K.
Your mileage may vary.

 

[Stellasstillarat]

It's difficult to know what's truth and more hopeful wishing. I hope and assume you've read all the other answers to my op. There all over the place and if I knew 100% for sure your results are what I'm going to see. The choice would be easy. I'd obviously install thr I max at 15' then what I'm going to do first which is leave the a99 there and add another 5' mast. My choice for going this route first is I already know and have recorded the incoming s units of locals and will instantly if there's any differance for worse or better. As summer just began and up until fall time a change to the 15' mast and the I max is definitely not out of the question. And if by some small chance the a99 with the extra 5' mast is totally disappointing and by disappointing I mean less or poorer performance thsn it on the three 5' masts. I may take your advice and chsnge out to the I max within a week or less after the extra 5' mast addition.

The Imax is a 5/8 wave and about 23' tall above the mounting base.
The A99 is less than a 1/2 wave at about 16.5' above the mounting base.

If you switch from the A99+20' pole (36.5') to the Imax+15' pole(38') you should see about 1.5-2 CB S-meter units improvement.
I did.
Several times.

I much prefered the performance of the full 18' Proton99 to the A99, but the P99 construction is wimpy.
I saw at least a full S-unit improvement from the A99 to the Proton99 and .5+ S-U improvement from the P99 to the I2K.
Your mileage may vary.

 

[DJboutit]

If you run more than a peaked and tuned radio 10w to 14w am and 18w to 20w ssb you have a good chance of bleeding over to phones and crappy speaker within 1 to 2 blks from your house. That antenna is to low to be running any good power the feed point needs to be a min of 24ft to 28ft then you have a better chance of not bleeding over when running more power.

 

[Stellasstillarat]

I'm so glad you've brought this up. And although this should definitely be the case , it isn't. On the contrary the reson for my apprehension in switching from the a99 to the imax is I'm worried this will indeed happen.

And the current a99 on what was on top of two 5' masts (less than 10' due to u-bolt over lap) for the first three months then added another 5' mast for an aproximent hight of about 13' (7 months now) and never ran less that 500 watts and depending on which amp I was using as I own several and, like to switch around every month or so and never one complaint from nabour's.

Mind you the radios I use are a madison for my ssb use and a sonar fs2340 for my AM operation.

The antenna is about 20' from reare of my home and not a singal rfi problem at home. Cordless phone, computer speakers televisions, nothing. Not the least.

And I feel compelled to mention it again, not one complaint. Granted im a very private person but do have sevral nabour's who would've let me know emedietly if I was causing their home appliances interference.

This is a list of amps I've used all on both sonar and madison (Palomar 300a, 500 elite, maco 300, DnA phantom and a couple of more I'd rather not mention. Now this is proof imo that even at what's an absolutely improper hight which should be causing rfi high swr and I'm sure other problems I'm not familiar with, but its absolutely free from these issues. I don't even use a low pass filter. The fs 2340 has a built in tvi trap but I doubt that has anything with the lack of rfi from that rig which I only use about once a week and as far as I know the madison has no built in rfi protection.

I can only assume that some situations that should be absolute. Are not. I drive my amps with never more than 1 1/2 watts and sometimes 1 watt max depending on which amp I decide to use.

I don't think the fact I run my equipment as clean as these types of gear can be run has anything to do.with the lack of rfi.

Both rigs the sonar and madison have not been moded as far as modulation limiter clipped/deleted.

I do occasionally like to run one of my other two fs 2340's as their audio compressor/limiter boards which have been bypassed and can be run with the demco modulator or an amplified d104

Although the audio is excellent on the channel I'm operating on those sonar's are dirtier and do cause adjacent channel splatter unlike the unmoded fs 2340.

I've never received rfi complaints when using those two just as I've never recived complaints while using the unmodified one with an unaplified d104 (no demco) If you can attempt to exsplan this this lack of rfi that should but absolutely doesn't exist, id be most interested. And gteatful. P.s. The first picture is my current setup, second is the first setup and two antenna pictures give you a basic idea of the way the antenna is installed.

If you run more than a peaked and tuned radio 10w to 14w am and 18w to 20w ssb you have a good chance of bleeding over to phones and crappy speaker within 1 to 2 blks from your house. That antenna is to low to be running any good power the feed point needs to be a min of 24ft to 28ft then you have a better chance of not bleeding over when running more power.

 

[Stellasstillarat]

My a99 peaks over my roof line by only about 5' unfourtunatly the added 5' will be leaving about 6' of the a99 below the roof line. Making the a99 still about 6' below the roof line. The antenna itself is aproximrtly 20' away from my home. I don't think this makes a difference but this is the furthest distance away from my home without it being abtruesive as it was placed next to a small tree in order to keep the yard neat looking and keeping the little ones from running into it face first.

Thats true however the difference in the average backyard between 15 and 20ft if it gets you over the roofline , tree line etc ,can be quite noticeable .

 

[wavrider]

Did you get the antenna raised up and what was your results?

 

[Stellasstillarat]

It will be going up tomorrow. I will operate my station on and off all day Sunday and let you know what if any changes I notice. After pondering the 5' differance, I'm beginning to belive it's gonna be a wash but I'm gonna go ahead with it because many who answered my (about 7 months ago) op about the initial install on 10' of mast said don't bother it's just not gonna work but it did. I didn't ask any questions before I added another 5' and truth be told from the first two 5' masts then adding the third I didn't see any differances but I've got this last 5' and the mounting hardware so It's going up. If I notice the slightest increase in on the recive side it will have been worth it. If not no biggie. It just anothrr 20 minutes I'll never get back. Thanks to sll who've answered. For or against. the important thing is you people used your time to add the input. Thanks

Did you get the antenna raised up and what was your results?

 

[Stellasstillarat]

Added the five feet and cut 30' off of extra LMR 400 that wasn't needed.. I don't know where to begin. I may have done a poor job of installing the new pl259. I got so upset at the results I didn't even try to figure out what I did wrong and I decided to not loose my mind over it and basically left it until tomorrow. Im definitely gonna need help with this mess. If I would've taken you advice this wouldn't have happened. In my defense if I there's something I want to do I'm gonna do it. It usually turns out ok but this wasn't one of them. I'll list everything I did and what happened tomorrow as if I post what's happening now ill just become discussed. I hope you guy's will be able to figure out what I did wrong. Because i.absoulutly did domething wrong. Catch you tomorrow. Thanks.

Did you get the antenna raised up and what was your results?

 

[wavrider]

HMMMM

What is that term used by old crusty technicians??

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Regardless of what happened short of the antenna being broken, anything can be fixed. The solder connections on the coax can be re worked and you can be back to your lengthy comparisons of two vertical antennas.

 

[Stellasstillarat]

Waverider. I totally agree but truth be told it never was correct from day one but it didn't bother me because i never operated below channel 21 where the swr between channels 1-20 had a slightly lower swr also had a much lower transceiver output.

The problem now has not only totally reversed but dd so drastically. I trully don't think it's the 259 posibly poor job I may have done but i will first re do the conecter then take it from there. I'm thinking the rings on the a99 may have been acidendily moved during the added mast as the antenna was being rolled around on the grass (but doubt it).

I suspect the 30 extra ft of coax removed may have.had something to do with theses changers. Just so you know the know the extra 30 ft ran 15 ft psst the radios room window then back another 15 ft into through the radio room. I'm going to apologize fot the length of this post.
Ok here goes.

My Madison's swr on channel 1 was the lowest at 1.1:1 and the output with anout 11/4 watt.

As I moved up in channel my swr woud rise as would my output. At channel 20 the swr would reach 1.1: 5 with and output of 21/2 watts. At channel 40 the swr would top out at
1.2:3 with an output of 3 watts.

I would use the variable output knob to drop my out put to 11/2 watts on chaned 20 and tune my amp up there. My output between channels 20 ànd 40 would dead key at around 350 and swing to close to 900 on 20-40 AM and with on ssb with 12- 15 the meter would peg at 1 kw.

Now it not only reversed with the swr /output dropping between 20- 40 and raising about 7 channels below to Channel 10.

between channels 20 and 40 I can't get any swr reading what so ever and the even with the variable output knob turned up all the way on 20 I can only achieve an output of 11/2 watts (before fucking thing's up) I would leave the variable at about 2 o'clock to achieve and tune the amp with 1 1/2 now although I'm still able to tune the amp on 20 at 11/2 watts it's with the variable turned all the way up cannot achieve the output I did on 20-40 because my modulation/pep/swing between 20-40 has dropped in half.

The output and modulation I would get between 20-and 40 I can only get from about seven channels below one to maybe channel 10 then it's all down hill.

My output on 38 lsb is about 8 watts opposed to the 12- 15 before I decided to fool with well enough.

With the Madison showing the 8 watts on 38 ssb with the anp showing about 500 I still made contacts with good reports but I've definitely changed things and don't like those changeses.

On the plus side the recive did come up a bit and seems a lot quieter . I will go purchase some solder as I lost a whole new roll re do the pl 259 which I have little doubt is causing any problems but as yall already know. What the fxxk do I know. Im kind of hoping someone who the knowledge tells me these are the correct readings and the old higher ones were posibly caused by that extra cable that was running parallel for 15 feet causing false readings. Ome more thing I did was tape the coax to the lowest part of the mast where as before it was fastened about 3 ft above the bottom of the mast. I mentioned everything indifferent because I don't know what caused this problem so I let y'all everything I did no matter how ridiculous I just thought I should put everything I did out there. P.s. although I've received my newly purchased an mfj 826b I haven't hooked it up as I wanted to do all comparisonsons with the same pos workman that was used before the change.after I re fo the 259 should I switch to the new mfj 826b as I may get a truer overview of the meter readings as the workman is really a pos and could be possibly givr me a better idea of where I'm at? P.s. I left the pos workman inline as to complete before and after. Should I hook up the mfj 250b I've had since Friday of just stay with the pos?

HMMMM

What is that term used by old crusty technicians??

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Regardless of what happened short of the antenna being broken, anything can be fixed. The solder connections on the coax can be re worked and you can be back to your lengthy comparisons of two vertical antennas.

 

[wavrider]

I was able to comprehend most of the info you posted . sort of??

1) OK summary you added 5 more feet of pole?

2) You cut off 30 feet of coax?

I think you have an RF choke AKA ugly balun at your fed point?

If you did then any length of coax you removed or added to your coax length should not have made that great a difference.

I would think that you would need a minimum of about 4 or 5 watts carrier ( dead key) to calibrate any type of VSWR meter.

Your dead key may be to low for accurate meter readings, remember at 3/4 scale is where an analog meter becomes some what accurate.

I would try your new meter as it is NEW and although MFJ has been known for quality issues it is still NEW per say so may provide more accurate readings per say.

so with that siggestions try thie,
Remove ampl;ifer all al other pieces of equipment you may have connected to your set up.

Only have radio>>> NEW vswr/power meter>>> antenna.

Take a reading for vswr on channel 1 then ch 20
then on ch 40

Calibrate your meter every time you change the channels.

Record and write down your vswr readings for those freq and come back and post them so we can have some data to work with.

Only radio>>>VSWR/POWER METER>>>antenna no amplifier.

Radio dead key around 4 to 5 watts


Need to get your impedance set up correctly then can worry about how the amplifier acts.

adding the other 5 feet of pole may have got you high enough above ground level that you no longer coupled to the ground per say thus you may start getting some actual vswr readings of your antenna system.