I've been meaning to put up a short review of my experience with this antenna for a few weeks so here goes... this is a very non technical review ... So I picked up a brand new in the box one of these for €40 here in Ireland (about $55 bucks US)... guy just wanted to get rid of it as he had no time for radio.... anyway I couldnt resist so I bought it and put it together... as with any of my previous Sirio antennas (827 5/8 vertical and SY-4 Yagi) the quality is pretty good, the antenna is a very unusual design compared with the majority of other verticals on the market, but it is basically a quarter wave ground plane which radiates from the top and is only 12ft in length...
I'll jump straight along... I mounted the antenna on top of a 20ft steel pole which is on the gable end of my house, and after pushing it up as far as it would go in the brackets the top of the antenna is now about 38 ft from the ground but the bottom hoop which connects the ground planes is only about 3ft from my roof tiles... so not an ideal installation by any means... it is however all I have to work with at my location... For coax I ran roughly 50ft of RG213 down to the radio... the antenna has a gamma match which has a recommended length on the instruction leaflet... I think its 590mm (Italian) anyway I shortened that by about an inch and it left me with an incredibly usable flat SWR right across the 11m band which only starts to rise over 1.2 when I go below 26.000 or above about 28.300... so WIDE banded antenna!
Performance... seems pretty good to me, I have owned a Sirio 827 5/8 vertical which was an excellent vertical and an A99 which was also a decent antenna... the new Top One so far seems to be on a par with these, but remember its only 12ft long compared to the 22ft long 827 or the 18ft A99.. and both of these antennas would have been much higher at my previous location (like 35ft to the base compared to the Top One which is only 38ft to the top)... I like long distance DX and so far I have made contacts all over Europe ( Sweden, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Russia etc etc) from my qth here on the west coast of Ireland with good signal reports on rx and tx... and several contacts across the pond into the US and Canada with reports of 5/5 to 5/7 with 100w from my old Yaesu FT990. For local rag chewing my buddy who lives 7 miles away is receiving me at an S9 +10db which is the same as the 5/8 GP I had up before... but he tells me my audio is Louder and Punchier with the Top One!!
Another nice thing about the new Top One is that it is pretty quiet on recieve and most stations sound clear and very audable so it makes it a nice listening antenna too... So thats about it guys, sorry its a pretty low tech review but I'm not very technical I'm afraid... the Top One has been a nice surprise to me, I probably wouldnt have bought it except that I lucked in and got it really cheap, but for anyone considering one of these but slightly worried by the unusual design... hopefully this might help you make up your mind and go for something a bit different!!
I'll jump straight along... I mounted the antenna on top of a 20ft steel pole which is on the gable end of my house, and after pushing it up as far as it would go in the brackets the top of the antenna is now about 38 ft from the ground but the bottom hoop which connects the ground planes is only about 3ft from my roof tiles... so not an ideal installation by any means... it is however all I have to work with at my location... For coax I ran roughly 50ft of RG213 down to the radio... the antenna has a gamma match which has a recommended length on the instruction leaflet... I think its 590mm (Italian) anyway I shortened that by about an inch and it left me with an incredibly usable flat SWR right across the 11m band which only starts to rise over 1.2 when I go below 26.000 or above about 28.300... so WIDE banded antenna!
Performance... seems pretty good to me, I have owned a Sirio 827 5/8 vertical which was an excellent vertical and an A99 which was also a decent antenna... the new Top One so far seems to be on a par with these, but remember its only 12ft long compared to the 22ft long 827 or the 18ft A99.. and both of these antennas would have been much higher at my previous location (like 35ft to the base compared to the Top One which is only 38ft to the top)... I like long distance DX and so far I have made contacts all over Europe ( Sweden, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Russia etc etc) from my qth here on the west coast of Ireland with good signal reports on rx and tx... and several contacts across the pond into the US and Canada with reports of 5/5 to 5/7 with 100w from my old Yaesu FT990. For local rag chewing my buddy who lives 7 miles away is receiving me at an S9 +10db which is the same as the 5/8 GP I had up before... but he tells me my audio is Louder and Punchier with the Top One!!
Another nice thing about the new Top One is that it is pretty quiet on recieve and most stations sound clear and very audable so it makes it a nice listening antenna too... So thats about it guys, sorry its a pretty low tech review but I'm not very technical I'm afraid... the Top One has been a nice surprise to me, I probably wouldnt have bought it except that I lucked in and got it really cheap, but for anyone considering one of these but slightly worried by the unusual design... hopefully this might help you make up your mind and go for something a bit different!!