Shockwave I probably started this issue about the GM being sensitive near the bottom, and I believe CDX007 agrees with me for his own reasons. Your quote above is what you said the week you received your GM and tried it on the ground before raising it up on your roof. You said; "Some back yard testing of the bandwidth made me give it a try. I'm glad I did."
To me, this sounds like something happened that caused you to pause... instead of finding the GM being fine like you claim below. I don't understand the seeming contradiction. Can you tell us what happened back then that caused you to pause, because in your post below you suggest something different, or am I just wrong?
I have explained before why I found the GM sensitive and now you question my claim? It not a big deal, because for me these are just opinions, but I would like to hear your side of this delima. I made a further explaintation below.
BTW, I raised the same issue with one of the guys in Europe that tested his new GM and reported it working poorly. He too had his mounted low to the Earth for some reason not explained. His pictures showed it mounted down below the two story homes surounding the area. I asked him why, and after a while I just figured he didn't have a clue what the hell this Yank was talking about...and he never responded.
I can't dispute your claim that you're GM worked fine on the ground, because I wasn't there. You claim here that it worked fine, but in your original post on the GM's arrival you seemed unsure for some reason for how it was working on the ground. I remembered your statement, so when I got my GM I took careful note of what happened when I installed it low on my new mount next to my radio shack. I mounted it on my 12' foot P/U pole that was totally collapsed. So, the antenna was close to the roof in that situation and it didn't show a bad match I don't think, but it worked just like other antennas I have when put in the position, its performance was attenuated. I raised it up about to 17', which is near the top of the peak on my roof...and it was still attenuated. So, I raised it up the full 9' for the 2nd section to about 21' feet, and then I noticed the attenuation was gone. The stations up north were coming in loud and clear at that point. That is the only reason I made my claim...about the GM being sensitive to stuff near the base of the antenna. I might be wrong, because I think the problem is due to blocking that Avanti referred to as "Shadow" in their patent for the AstroPlane. That said though, I still think I would try to keep stuff away from the fine working choke at the bottom as best one can.
How say you?
