In addition to this thread, after several W58's purchased in 2021 not working out of the box, I have invested a great deal of time, figuring out why and what changed. I know all of these answers now.
What I can say, as a lesson in the antenna's history, is that the Maco V58 and Workman W58 used to be the same antenna, manufactured by Maco in the US, for Workman (and others) and private label branded the WEP W58 Space Ranger. This was until Maco closed up. This would account for why some W58 boxes were marked V58 and some manuals were included with the WEP W58, that were marked Maco V58.
After the closure of Maco, the Workman was sent offshore for manufacture. This antenna was being produced, for years, while Maco was dead. The current Maco owner, calls the WEP antenna a clone, but is it? In truth, the Maco was a clone of the Wilson Electronics Alpha V58. Granted, The older Maco, did buy rights to the design and name , but they did make changes to it.
Initially, everything with the offshore WEP W58 was good or better than the Maco Then things changed, without Workman's knowledge. This annoyed me, as the antennas I purchased, did not work.
For the past two years, I have been working with WEP, to fix and possibly improve the antenna. I have provided engineering services to WEP to deal with this and we are waiting for the OEM, to correct the antenna build. It has been a long and aggravating process. We hope they get it right this time around. I was very specific, in respect to materials to be used and sent them new drawings. If they don't do it it right this time, I told WEP we should do it here in the US or ourselves out of frustration.
The goal is to have a good antenna available at a reasonable price point. I have also worked on some other similar antennas for WEP, that may or may not be produced by them or myself. I don't really love a ring match, so I went in a different direction with that, in the other iterations I worked on. Regardless, the W58 is coming back soon and I will make that announcement here, when it happens, as they will be available directly from me.
The current owner of Maco antennas, did make some running changes to the build and quality of the V58 and V5000. The WEP W58 will not require the end user to de-burr tubing, as one example, which has been the case since the beginning of the new ownership of Maco antennas.
73,
SuperLid
