well i hope your hopes arent way up in the air on this one.
the antron 99 is a half wave end fed antenna, and because of that, it will not perform much differently with the ground plane kit on.
regardless of whether they are 6 or 9 feet long.
really, the only thing the ground plane kit does is remove some of the RF from the coax/ mast assembly.
there will still be some common mode currents moving down the coax with the ground plane kit so you will still need an RF choke at the feedpoint.
in reality it is not a "groundplane", it is a counterpoise.
the firestik part will not increase the performance at all, and will most likely hinder it.
it will not turn it into a top loaded antenna because the tuning coils are still present in the base of the antenna.
all you are doing is adding extra inductance to the antenna that you will have to tune out at the base.
pure snake oil my friend.
the entire idea behind the firestik line is hocum in my book.
they are partly responsible for the big "must have 18 feet of coax on my mobile antenna" hype that has been going on for decades.
its because their antennas dont work right unless they have the "stock" coax length.
why? because the coax is part of the radiating system!
that goes against the entire idea of using coax in the first place!
bottom line, the counterpoise may help keep some TVI out of your house, but doesnt do much else.
the firestik thing is a bad move. goes against sound antenna theory.
LC
