directional gainmasters

what high gain antennas Eddie, you know there is no such a thing as a high gain vertical cb antenna,

just some with a little less loss,

some that are longer to raise current maxima while having a fight with their own lower 1/8wave,

some that are even longer to raise current maxima even higher & don't have a fight with their lower 1/4wave,

some that are hat loaded to raise current maxima even further above ground at the same tip height,

plus a miriad of antennas that don't have the expected pattern or noise levels because they are connected to conductive masts ground wires & unchoked feed-lines.


LC
i get a small increase when i point the side with the hat towards the direction i want to talk, possibly not noticable on anything but a steady carrier like FM.

mudfoot,
its FM that does the damage, SSB & AM especially big swinging AM are MUCH easier on amplifiers and antennas.

Eddie.
I have said it before, GM mounted in the clear is the best white stick I ever tested at multiple locations as a throw it up antenna,
no messing with radials isolators chokes, or so I thought,

GM has inexcusable mechanical issues ( weakest white stick in wind ) & electrical issues ( 200w FM power rating ) that sirio won't fix,

nobody makes a wind-proof high power 1/2wave ground-plane, preferably with an inbuilt isolator,
a 1/2wave is easier to make wind-proof,

can you imagine how you market a good 1/2wave telling people it will equal or out perform their 5/8wave end-fed if its mounted at the same tip height and why that is, when almost everybody else in the cb antenna game have spent years telling people the 5/8 is the dogs bollocks of antennas & showing inappropriate patterns of ground mounted 1/4-1/2-5/8 waves over a perfectly conducting infinite ground-plane,

what a great idea 5/8's are,
you get to use more tube to make a less robust more floppy antenna that performs no better than a 1/2wave at best when both are correctly installed at the same tip height,

antennas need to be able to withstand 100+MPH winds or they are cheap fall apart garbage imho,

in the last week within a few miles of me we have had

1X sirio 827 lose its radials,
1x sirio tornado snapped at the base insulator,
1x bent twisted & cone broke new vector 4000,
1x bent new vector 4000,
2x snapped IMAX
1x snapped gain-master
multiple banana shaped venom/ silver rod type,

that's just the ones I know about, there's more,

astroplane & i10k are undamaged so far and penetrator 500 survived pulling the 9" rawl bolts holding the 20ft mast loose from the wall, now swapped for imax until winds go away,

navs IMAX snapped a few days back so he made a sirio 827- imaxtron99 1/2wave

827 hub & coil form / IMAX bottom section / a99 middle & top section,

I just gave him another 827 to convert to a 100mph 1/2wave.

I don't believe any mainstream manufacturer is the slightest bit interested in making antennas that last,

take my buddy blind AL as an example,

he had 1x 2 section super big stick & 2x sirio 827 break in a few years & 1 blown base amplifier due to open circuit 827,
been blind he was paying commercial antenna installers to supply & errect his antennas, that dismal situation would have continued every year or two had i not intervened,

for the last 13 or so years he has had the I-10k up on the same mast ( UNTOUCHED since it was erected ) as those fall apart go open circuit & blow your amplifier antennas were sited,

if they made antennas that last nobody would be buying new ones.

roll your own from from the busted antennas you have lying around ,

Connor,
if sirio had not made all the stupid claims and just said

maximum power FM mode 200W *50% duty cycle *
maximum power SSB mode 500W + *NO COMPRESSION*
maximum wind survival < 60mph *NO GUY LINES*

all would be well,

they may handle more on other frequencies but not 27.78125 or frequencies close to that,

yes i have seen the vortex quasar, know who smoked his for the same reason the gainmaster won't handle power,
neither vortex or sirio seem to understand how stub matching & coax ratings with high vswr work,

they realised the stub match setup was never going to handle 5kw with high vswr above the stub so they copied the i-10k trombome match,

it still wont take high power like my i-10k,

i was playing with my buddys vortex Q82 yesterday,
vortex use the strongest thickest heaviest tube ever seen in any cb antenna,
it makes my i-10k look like a whimp,

but its ott, thick walled & heavy, comes in a minimal number of sizes so their antennas have a low number of long sections making them heavy as hell and top heavy to boot,

i much prefere a faster taper high section count of .058" wall tube, its lighter & stiffer when used to build antennas.

i don't need 5kw connor, but that's what they claimed it would take,
i run 25w & have zero interest in fighting with the acom 1000 club on ch19.

Mark,
don't take it down if its working ok, they do work great if you don't want high power rating and don't get strong winds,

still don't know what to make of the directivity claims if connor is correct my locals see almost 3db change rotating the antenna,

sounds crazy, i need to check it out with my GM.

i talk to them often, its what they are claiming Eddie,
seeing any change at all is surprising to me, weather is not right for playing antennas its who's antenna aint broke or damaged week.