seems like the a99 without the radials or gpk, will work just as well as the other 2 for much cheaper.
I10k av test =7.3
A99 av test =7.2
GM test 1 av =7.4
GM test 2 av =7.8 But these are averages, when you look at the individual signals there were not any differences on most of those in fact you could say for the better part that 90 percent of the signal reports were the same.
You're right GG. According to a world of other reports and comments over the years most guys find 1-4 sunits difference between the antennas they compare, but the numbers you see here are what I get. I have other Signal Reports in my WWRF profile album that shows some of what I did in the summer of 2009 too.
http://www.worldwidedx.com/members/marconi-albums-marconi-s-signal-reports-may-august-2009.html
I have three nice radios, but I'm not too sure the AGC circuit is messin' with the way the signals are shown. I have compared the signals on the radios and they are almost identical on all three, a Galaxy DX2547, Kenwood TS570D, Kenwood TS50, so I don't know if what I'm recording is right or not, it is what it is.
I've had other radios over the years and when I started posting on the Internet some years ago...I said the same things---I saw my vertical CB antennas make about the same signal. I did this work with some of my antennas long before the Internet was available for communications and again later as new antennas came on the market.
I got started in this hobby effort a long time ago, when I heard guys repeat the old story about the AstroPlane being a little bitty antenna that was weak and puny and would only work good close to the Earth when you couldn't raise one up. They even said it had to be mounted near the Earth below 20' max. Later I read the Patent, and then I knew it was all CBBS, they just look at the pictures and didn't read to understand the words. It happens all the time with CBer's. Of course I didn't believe it, so I set out to prove that point, and since then I've heard so much more CBBS that I'm amazed I'm still interested in radio.
Another complaint that I couldn't understand was the A99 was just a dummy load. On that one, it can be true, but I didn't find it to be a bad antenna if it worked right. In fact, I've owned several over the years. One was terrible and the other to worked great, so I realized some were just bad from the factory and I set out to figure out why...if I could. I took the bad one apart and found the coax shield was not tinned, and poorly soldered to the matching device, in fact three little shield wires seem like they might even be touching other parts. That was hard to tell though, after all the trouble it took to get inside.
For what it's worth, I soldered up the problem and radiated the antenna hanging in a tree and then it worked just fine with no more TVI or Splatter to all of my buddies in the neighborhood. It was hard to handle hung in a tree, but I think that bugger worked just fine outside of the FG random that Solorcon installs them in.
Thanks for the observations and comments.
