Marconi yes thanks for the invite to read the results of your tests I will definately do that.
Seeing double eyed here brought back an old FT-101EE from the dead and brain dead from looking at the service manual.
The sigma IV I worked on had one set of vertical spreaders,, looked like brown cardboard encased in fiberglass protective coating. Replaced them with some poly lenses we used at the plant for shatter proof lenses in some lighting fixtures, good tough stuff.
They were straight across, well looked to be straight across, the antenna had seen its better days.
No support at the top of the hoop, used some more poly and some cable hangers to support the hoop and small L bracket attached to the main vertical, centered the hoop and stabilized it rather well.
I did follow the avanti manual to the T, The only discrepiency from the manual on the antenna was the hoop had been lowerd 2 inches from what the manual called for, so we put it back in accordance with the manual.
The antenna does sound good and works well, on the base here using several different rigs FT-890, FT-102, Kenwood TS120-S, Siltronix 1011-C and D ( yes I like radios that glow in the dark) it is hard to tell the difference between the 5/8 and the Sigma IV on signal strength, thus I drove out in the mobile to test them.
Sorry so many variables but I will not climb the tower just to remove the antenna to do an more accurate field comparision, on the other hand a friend of mine does have a vector 4000 old style no dingle ball on top and we could do some field comparisions with it, build another 5/8 wl, if we ever get out of this freeze we are having here in FL.
