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POLL: Monkey Made or Predator 10k?
- Thread starter Red Ranger
- Start date
i think it greatly depends on which Monkey made antenna. i've tried the 17'shaft single coil 10K's the 17" shaft bad boys as well as the R4 55 and find the best out of them all to be either the Monkey Made MM4 which i truly think the 55 copied the design or the 17"shaft 10K. i find the best ears & best Dxing between the MM4 Monkey made or the 17" shaft 10K. i give the slight edge to the 10K because of the replacable componets and enterchangeble shafts. but performance the same. MM4 Monkey Made is 7'9"" overall with that big 4"dia. coil walks tall & kicks butt.
the monkey made is a good antenna but if you run any power stay away from the models with more than 4 turns on the coil section as the amount of counterpoise plays significantly into how tuneable they become.
The 5+ turn versions are not tuneable with power when mounted closer towards the counterpoise as they tend to radiate the majority of power transmitted too close to the counterpoise and it will show up as reflected power and transistors do not care for that.
If those versions had the coil sections mounted higher or further away from the counterpoise then the reflected power is reduced but the amount of useful radiated power is concentrated at the coil section and the whip length is shortened so in my opinion it's best to use a lower count in turns at the coil section and more length in the antenna whip section.
A good choice for a coil antenna in a car's roof mounted scenario is the single coil predator 10-k with 12''/17'' shaft and I use a 27'' shaft 10-k on the bedrail of my old pickup.
The 5+ turn versions are not tuneable with power when mounted closer towards the counterpoise as they tend to radiate the majority of power transmitted too close to the counterpoise and it will show up as reflected power and transistors do not care for that.
If those versions had the coil sections mounted higher or further away from the counterpoise then the reflected power is reduced but the amount of useful radiated power is concentrated at the coil section and the whip length is shortened so in my opinion it's best to use a lower count in turns at the coil section and more length in the antenna whip section.
A good choice for a coil antenna in a car's roof mounted scenario is the single coil predator 10-k with 12''/17'' shaft and I use a 27'' shaft 10-k on the bedrail of my old pickup.
I did a test with a buddy of mine comparing the Monkey Made MM-4 to the Steel whip with spring at a distance of about 15mi. running a Galaxy DX949, he was receiving on a Cobra 25LTD and the results was: Both came in at the same s-units but the monkey definetly had a lot more audio, it was louder and cleaner than the 8.5' steel whip.
Antennas don't affect the "audio". If you got these results, something else, aside from the antenna, changed. Their is no such thing as "audio gain" when it comes to antennas.
The DB
I can't tell a difference between the whip on my suburban and the monkey made on my pickup. The bandwidth was better with the monkey made, but I don't remember the details now.
I run the 10k for its light weight, fairly low wind resistance, high power handling, and excellent bandwidth. I never considered the MM due to the weight and wind load.
73,
Brett
73,
Brett
DXman
Yes, that's 3100 degrees F. Nine yrs of hard work.
I ran with the 10K & 22" shaft on my F-150 for 7 yrs - excellent antenna.
I done a complete grounding of the whole truck and set the antenna in the middle of the roof. Tuned it using the MFJ 259, then ran a messager 300 (275 watts) with a 2950dx.
I also made several contacts in Europe just using the 30 watts from the radio.
I was very happy with how this antenna worked. Made contacts into Indonesia, Tawain, Japan, Eastern Russia, S. Africa and of course several into western EU & S. America.
I done a complete grounding of the whole truck and set the antenna in the middle of the roof. Tuned it using the MFJ 259, then ran a messager 300 (275 watts) with a 2950dx.
I also made several contacts in Europe just using the 30 watts from the radio.
I was very happy with how this antenna worked. Made contacts into Indonesia, Tawain, Japan, Eastern Russia, S. Africa and of course several into western EU & S. America.
The monkey made makes a good indestructible weapon and the Predator 10-K makes a decent lightweight antenna.
Decent? over the Monkey made?
The single coil Predator is over a foot longer than the Monkey made. On mobile antennas, the closer it is to a full 1/4 wavelength of it's designed frequency the less loading coil is needed resulting in less inductive coil losses that are inherent with loaded antennas.
There is nothing magical about any of these center loaded metal CB antennas regardless of what Mark Sherman says.
A cheap 4ft. fiberglass whip properly mounted on a good location such as you did on your Tahoe will make more of a difference than a high power handling steel coil antenna mounted in a poor location.
I totally agree, although I'm not sure how marks name came into this.
Mounting location makes all the difference in the world and I'm sure the Monkey made and the Predator 10-K are just fine for the roof of a car but I would never use either one on a tractor trailer unless by some miracle it was mathematically correct for the space available which is highly unlikely.
I just assumed nearly everything you know you learned from Mark and he probably had not much to say about Predator antennas.