first of all barely anyone owns both these antennas and anyone that has both have stated the imax worked better as far as your made up 90 percent is a figment of your imagination and my bandwidth is as stated 25.160 1.9 -26.965 1.2-27.555 1.0-28.500 1.8. so theres no small portion of that range(more false information)so do you just like to disagree with me?
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Imax 2000 or maco v-5/8th
- Thread starter radioman24
- Start date
woohooimax 2000 top section 102 stainless bottom maco v 5/8 ground planes length 24 1/2 feet radiator 23 feet.
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I got to say I had both at same hight,location,tower,coax and radio setup. I can tell you my experience. I liked the ease of setup of the Imax 2000 but when I got my Maco 5/8 I was thinking maybe I should not have bought it because It was not as simple as the 2000. It took me a good part of the day to get the maco 5/8 built and tuned but after I did wow, it performed a little better than the 2000 in everything from DX to local. My rec was quieter too so maybe it was the difference in hearing more stations. People I talked to said they noticed a slight change in my signal too. I have the Imax in the garage ever since. I will not sell it or get rid of it because it is a great antenna but the maco has been up from 2003 till present and I love it. one thing I like in the maco 5/8 too is I can lower the tower and hadle it with no gloves. My friend's Imax swr went through the roof, I climbed up to see what was up and the darn thing gave me splinters all over both hands and did it sting for a while and all the white coating was gone. It was up about 5-6 years so we fixed it by sanding it and spraying it with white paint and cleaned the coax conection and swr was great again.
I do know the band width is better but my maco is used from 26.865 to 28.500 without a tuner and swr are resonable and not a problem.
I just wanted to tell my experience with both.
Thanks,
AP
I do know the band width is better but my maco is used from 26.865 to 28.500 without a tuner and swr are resonable and not a problem.
I just wanted to tell my experience with both.
Thanks,
AP
Are the Maco 5/8 wave a bugger to tune? To me they look like a Ringo Ranger, I know with the Ringo the instructions were to the tee, I mean if you measured exactly to the instuctions it was perfectly tuned .I have a small backyard, and it would be hell tuning it for me with the big groundplanes. I had enough trouble with my Imax 2000 lol
I understand that the Antenna is longer, but it is NOT all about length!
The gain realized At distance is Attributed to TOA ( take of angle) that is where the antenna gets gain. If you pull the major lobe down towards the horizon, you are concentrating the signal down lower....
That is where the gain is.
There are places where one antenna will work better than another.
Example:
I live in a canyon, I have a rather large mountian to the west,and slightly higher ground than me to the south and east, with the canyon sloping off to the north.
I have a I 10 K And a 1/4 wave ground plane mounted on each end of the house.
When the DX is in, there are times that the 1/4 wave will out talk the I 10 K, because the TOA on the 1/4 wave is higher than the 5/8`s wave.
There are a lot of reasons why one antenna will work better in one area for one person and not for another....that is not an indicator of how it will work for the masses.
REAL testing requires lots of expensive equipment that most of us do not have access to.
And in the end, it all depends on what the situation is in YOUR location.
Just thought I would throw this in the mix....
73
Jeff
good point audioshockwave if only there was some sort of camera that could pick up that pattern in the air by just keying the radio and go outside and point then we could see what was going on hell maybe there is.that sure would make things easier.
Nope it definately isn't all about physical length.i wager both antennas have the exact same electrical length of 5/8 wave.the fact that whoever pulled it apart for the i max exposed test which everyone seems to take as gospel intrigues me,this guy claims the i max is .64 wave,yet the company who make it who are known for bullshitting at the drop of a dime (re A99 9.9dbi gain) claim its a 5/8 wave,hmm i wonder why that is? surely if .64 was better solarcon would be claiming that it was .64.
then you look at the facts,
v58 is inductively tuned giving it inductive reactance which has to be tuned out by making the whip shorter (capacitive reactance).i dig that ok.
guy opens up an i max,declares to the world its .64 because it is physically .64 in length.hmmm,but the whip is capacitively coupled and has inductive tuning,ok i dig that.
firstly its capacitively coupled giving it capacitive reactance which has to be tuned out by making the radiator longer (inductive reactance)
but the one thing he never took into account is it is buried inside a dielectric which would make that physical length appear even longer,electrically too long to be a .64 wave because dielectrics slow propagation of rf which means a radiator has to be shorter physically to be electrically right.
so they give it variable inductive tuning at the base which effectively makes the radiator even longer electrically.which makes it even less of a .64.
i think for once solarcon told the truth and it is a 5/8 wave with an extremely lossy matching system,i think they lied about its gain,nothing new there,they have form for doing that,
but most importantly with the capacitive coupling which effectively shortens the radiator again,i'm starting to think the fact that its physically .64 long is nothing more than sheer coincidence,(because if it wasn't you can bet your ass solarcon would be claiming it was a magical/mythical .64 because thats their style) which is borne out by the fact it is beaten by most decent 5/8 waves,if only marginally,
which i put down to the lossy matching system and the lack of ground radials,which when radials are added will effectively drop the radiation angle to that off a standard 5/8 wave and appear to give it more gain on the horizon,but it still lags slightly behind a true 5/8 wave with 1/4 wave radials.no surprise there cause its a 5/8 wave with a lossier matching system.
claims of large gains on a 5/8 wave are all made by those who haven't tested the two antennas properly on the same pole,with the same feed in a very short space of time to minimise atmospheric conditions.no surprise there.then no doubt the signals were checked at levels which would be above the agc threshold on of all high tech signal meters a cb or ham radios s meter,hardly a scientific approach.
so one thing is very clear what audioshockwave says about it not being all about length is the one thing on this thread and the i max 2000 you CAN be certain of.
bottom line is if you put a radial kit on the i max it will help solve some issues,if your cool with the hype/doubt surrounding it go for it,if you want a proven design that works well on dx then it might be worth considering the v58.
either way you have to decide what of the stuff you read is fact and what is fiction yourself and no matter how many answers you get they will for the best part all be based on opinion,not FACT.my opinion included.
B
BOOTY MONSTER
Guest
well sirio just bought out a new antenna that's their version of a imax . its a wire inside fiberglass sleeves with a matching network in that bottom and no ground elements . the advertise it as a .625 wave . i wonder why they didn't take advantage of the extra performance they could have gotten if it was lengthened to a .64wl antenna ?
Gain-Master, the new reference in its class of antennas
Gain-Master, the new reference in its class of antennas
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Probably because they are trying to compete for the same dime as the IMAX. Problem is - is that they probably want more for it. One of the things going for the IMAX is that it is less than $100. For $100, it gives a lot - you know how the rest goes.
BTW - have you tried your coil yet?
Again - just curious...
EDIT:
AS far as why IMAX doesn't make it a .64, one can only guess. Maybe they will yet. They have upgraded this antenna a couple of times already. Perhaps it is because they just weighed the cost of the extra materials and re-tooling and couldn't afford to sell it that way. Who knows? Seems that mfrs of the .64 antennas don't have a problem asking for the extra price difference. They still sell their antennas as well. Solarcon didn't make the claim that it was a .64; some guy that had nothing to do with that company did when he wrote that expose. If anybody bothered to look at the polar pattern that he gave, it might sum up the .64 claim - wouldn't it?
As far as the fiberglass splintering problem goes, fiberglass is fiberglass. Unless any of them can add something to it that can make it UV resistant; then they will all suffer the same fate. Fixing it isn't that hard to do. I suspect that I will probably need to get a can of spray varnish and repair in 4 or 5 years from now.
BTW - have you tried your coil yet?
Again - just curious...
EDIT:
AS far as why IMAX doesn't make it a .64, one can only guess. Maybe they will yet. They have upgraded this antenna a couple of times already. Perhaps it is because they just weighed the cost of the extra materials and re-tooling and couldn't afford to sell it that way. Who knows? Seems that mfrs of the .64 antennas don't have a problem asking for the extra price difference. They still sell their antennas as well. Solarcon didn't make the claim that it was a .64; some guy that had nothing to do with that company did when he wrote that expose. If anybody bothered to look at the polar pattern that he gave, it might sum up the .64 claim - wouldn't it?
As far as the fiberglass splintering problem goes, fiberglass is fiberglass. Unless any of them can add something to it that can make it UV resistant; then they will all suffer the same fate. Fixing it isn't that hard to do. I suspect that I will probably need to get a can of spray varnish and repair in 4 or 5 years from now.
B
BOOTY MONSTER
Guest
sirio usually sells their copies of other antenna for less than the original versions do . exp. starduster , astroplane , sigma 4 ...... . hopefully the gain master will do the same . unfortunately the sirio copies seem to not be a durably made as the originals , but work ok in milder climates . hopefully they also made it so the fiberglass doesn't deteriorate and splinter off like the imax will do .
naaaaaaaaaa.... havnt tried the coil yet . ill mes with the swap next weekend
naaaaaaaaaa.... havnt tried the coil yet . ill mes with the swap next weekend
Reading sirio's claims the new gain-master would be more a version of shakespeare's big stick style antennas than it is of a i max or A99,due to it being a centre fed dipole as opposed to the i max/a99 endfed monopole designs.
it looks the part on paper but only real world tests and price will be the decider if it is what they say it is.
the one part of it i'm not so sure about is the 5/8 wave dipole bit.sure it is 6.85m long,but its made from low loss coax which generally has approx .79 velocity factor.
(Like bob 85 and shockwave on the sigma 4 alternative thread,the next part is where i lay my cards on the table,with the same possibility of being shot down in flames by the doubters and experts alike)
i'm willing to bet the top part is in the region of 10 feet long which with a capacitor in series would electrically shorten it,if the bottom part is in the range of 12 feet long and has .79 velocity factor then its electrically shortened to around 9.5 feet,but it has a tuning stub too which i'm thinking shortens it a bit more electrically,
so after that what are you left with?
my guess is an electrical centrefed halfwave dipole that is choked and decoupled from the mast.which would put it in the same class as a bigstick with the benefit that choking/decoupling brings.
which ironically comes right back to audioshockwaves statement that "length" isn't everything and isn't always what it appears to be.
ANOTHER SHREWD PIECE OF MARKETING?????????????????????
YOU DECIDE !!!!!!!!!!
"but before you decide to shoot me down in flames,consider this,look at the picture of the radiation pattern and current distribution,exacly what you would see in a 1/2 wave dipole in free space.hmmmmmmmmmm.coincidence ??"
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