Sirio Preformer 5000 Magnet Mount Antenna

[222DBFL]

FR I found the same to be true with the new wilson antennas. I tried to tune 2 of them, stuck my sirio performer up on the guys van and it dropped to like as 1.2, best he could get his was about 1.5-1.7, and the x and r readings sucked. I had an old wilson 5000 that was pre barjan or whoever owns them now, with a brand new whip and I was able to tune it to about flat at 27.385. We had to trim some off the whip but we would have with the sirio as well. At any rate he had 2 brand new wilson 5000 base coils with like 5 whips, a couple new ones and a couple that had been cut way down lol. I just installed a new performer 5000 on my work van after not being able to get the performer about a year or so ago. I beat the crap out of the turbo and it still works great but I like the performer better. Matter or opinion I suppose. Man if I could only drill my work van I would!! It's about 9ft to the roof. Add the sirio and your about a 15ft or so lol. It can talk out the back door with about 6ft x10dt of metal under the antenna behind it. Look up the Nissan NV 3500 high back work van you'll see what I have to work with. Even with the mag mount it rocks!! Just my experience with them.

 

[M0GVZ]

Even with the mag mount it rocks!! Just my experience with them.

Putting the magmount on a large chunk of thick sheet metal it should work relatively well in comparison to a fixed mount as long as you don't get silly with the power. As you up the power you get to the limit of the capacitive coupling of the magmount to the groundplane and get to a point where it starts working against you. Somewhere from 50-100W would be my guesstimated limit for a Sirio magmount before the limits of the capacitive coupling at 27MHz becomes an issue.

 

[222DBFL]

I run max 50 watts. I also use about 5 heavy duty magnets under the mag mount, one pl145 and some others. It makes for a tight bond. I have also ran a 2 pill with this setup before and not has any issues. But I have since taken the amp out. Also I repaced the stock coax with lmr240. I have also added some ferrite chokes at the antenna feed point. The stock setup seems to work well. No amp needed when conditions are right. Just gotta be at the right place at the right time.

 

[milkman21218]

I've run Wilson 1000 & 5000 Mag mounts antennas for about 17 years. And nobody could prove that they weren't the best Mags around. Then about 2 years ago I begun to read many reviews about the Sirio 5000 PL. I did purchase one and find that I see a increase of 5-20 miles while parked swapping between the Wilsons and Sirio. Great 5/9 report on 10 meters into South America and Europe. All while using a 18 watt Magnum 257. I tuned the Sirio from 26.950 @ 1.7 SWR to 28.740 @ 1.8 SWR (27.555 @ 1.0 SWR) with my 259. I've been in radio since 1968. And it is the best mobile antenna that I've ever run (even better that my 102's). And more broad banded too! I have one Mag mounted using the Sirio PL/145 on each of my Chrysler T&C mini vans (2004 & 2008).
They both are very close in performance. After reading the post on how it works on HF I may try my LDG tuner and FT-857D on Icom 706 Mk2G. I highly recommend these as great antennas for the operator who want to hear and be heard!

 

[Blackcat630]

I also ran Wilsons for years. Around hear coming up all the locals swore by em. I remember a couple Wilson/K40 tests we did back in the day and the Wilsons always came out on top. A couple years ago I decided to change my pick up antenna set up. For years a ran a mag mount 1k or 5k Wilson on the cab of my ol 97 Ram. I thought it worked great and it did for what it was. Then I put my purse down and drilled a hole in my old girl....great decision. Also picked up a Sirio p5000. The permanent mount and the sirio was a noticeable upgrade. I still need to do more bonding on the truck but it really works better. I notice it locally and in DX. I was parked out on some open property out side of town and worked Stan in Hawaii on a bear foot connex 4800. Not the strongest signal but he was in there. With one of the Wilsons on a mag mount I don't think I would have even head him. I worked Russia on 10 w a barefoot 2950 w the sirio going down the road to work last winter also. It is a great DX antenna and permanently mounted it TALKS. I worked a lot of dx through the years on the Wilsons don't get me wrong, but it just seems easier on the Sirio..especially w lower power. My wilsons are pre barjan can't speak for the new ones....A 1/4 wave whip is still king but the next best thing IMO is the Sirio P5000.

 

[fourstringburn]

Walter White is dead Blackcat, or is he?

I received my Sirio Performer 5000 trucker series mirror mount antenna today. I will be installing it Sunday afternoon and will use my RIG-MASTER AA54 Antenna analyzer to test it and evaluate it. I will post the readings later on.

 

[M0GVZ]

Walter White is dead Blackcat, or is he?

I received my Sirio Performer 5000 trucker series mirror mount antenna today. I will be installing it Sunday afternoon and will use my RIG-MASTER AA54 Antenna analyzer to test it and evaluate it. I will post the readings later on.

Impedance at resonance (where X=0, not where SWR is lowest) of a 1/4 wave vertical over a perfect ground is 37 Ohms so use that as a yardstick to work from.

 

[fourstringburn]

Impedance at resonance (where X=0, not where SWR is lowest) of a 1/4 wave vertical over a perfect ground is 37 Ohms so use that as a yardstick to work from.

I'm aware of all that M0GVZ, This antenna has inductance from the loading coil that should be at or near 50 ohms if designed right.

What I'm going to measure is where the resonant point is and how much bandwidth by using the SWR plot graph on my analyzer. the useful range will be +/- 2.0 SWR.

The true resonant point will be shown when the R and Z value are equal or close to it and should show the reactance (X) at or near 0.

I will take pics of the analyzer screens and post them.

 

[The DB]

I'm aware of all that M0GVZ, This antenna has inductance from the loading coil that should be at or near 50 ohms if designed right.

What I'm going to measure is where the resonant point is and how much bandwidth by using the SWR plot graph on my analyzer. the useful range will be +/- 2.0 SWR.

The true resonant point will be shown when the R and Z value are equal or close to it and should show the reactance (X) at or near 0.

I will take pics of the analyzer screens and post them.

Actually, a loading coil on an antenna will lower the antenna's R value at resonance, not raise it. That loading coil would make that antenna have an R of something less then 37 over a perfect ground.

That being said your vehicle will be nothing like a perfect ground, and vehicles are notoriously bad. Those losses will raise the R reading on your analyzer displayes, and also widen that SWR bandwidth you referred to. Losses from radiation (otherwise known as radiation resistance) and losses from everything else (such as ground losses) act like resistors in series and add. In most vehicles this increases the R value significantly. Many people look for that X=0 R=50 tune on their antenna, and they don't realize that a modern day vehicle is such a bad groundplane that half or more of their signal is lost as heat.

If you want to load an antenna in such a way that R goes up then you use a capacity hat, not a loading coil.


The DB

 

[fourstringburn]

You use a Capacity hat to counteract the inductance needed for a shortened antenna. So yes this means less coil to match the antenna meaning less loss and better ERP.


Here is my HF antenna.

 

[M0GVZ]

Glad you both reminded me about the coil, I'd completely forgotten about that. When I did it with my Tarheel it was done with it in the parked position effectively bypassing the coil which of course you can't do with the Sirio or Wilson etc. I may retest with just the whip to see what the difference is.

That's a nice shot there of your install and the cap hat install looks very robust. I see you have a wide braid strap going to the door at the bottom of the arm as well. Looks like all the bases covered.

Very nice.

 

[fourstringburn]

Thanks for the compliment. I have learned a lot about mobile antennas Over the years especially since I got licensed.

I will be using the mirror mount Sirio performer 5000 series for my CB radio. I run 2 radios, a HF and CB, so that's why I use 2 antennas so I can monitor the CB when I am on the HF rig which is usually always.

The cap hat isn't large enough to bypass the coil on the higher bands, it just allows the antenna to match up better by using less coil on all bands.

When I'm parked , I use a 16.5 ft. telescoping whip which is a quarter wave on 20 meters in place of the cap hat and I can tune 80 meters only using about 5 inches of coil where as with the cap hat, it uses about 14 inches or so of coil. That is a HUGE difference and a noticeable one on both transmit and receive.

Try that whip on your little tarheel and you will see a tremendous difference on the lower bands! The whip collapses to 15 inches so you can easily store it in your car. Since it is a quarter wave on 20 meters, you can go straight to the radio with just a coax and no coil on 20 meters and retract the whip some for bands above that.

MFJ sells it for about $60 US.

 

[firerunner]

I finally got to go out and check the sirio for skip and it works great, while driving through the valley area close to my house i made contacts and never seemed to make them with the wilson. Could have just been good conditions who knows really. I also went out on a high area above the bay here in Ca. and made a lot of contacts all over the U. S. Then a buddy about 150 miles away got on with me from his base station and recorded me and i couldn't believe how loud i was on his radio. I could hear him but barely and when he recorded me i couldn't make him out at all. So far i think the sirio is working great, my wilson is one of the newer models.

 

[M0GVZ]

When I'm parked , I use a 16.5 ft. telescoping whip which is a quarter wave on 20 meters in place of the cap hat and I can tune 80 meters only using about 5 inches of coil where as with the cap hat, it uses about 14 inches or so of coil. That is a HUGE difference and a noticeable one on both transmit and receive.

Try that whip on your little tarheel and you will see a tremendous difference on the lower bands! The whip collapses to 15 inches so you can easily store it in your car. Since it is a quarter wave on 20 meters, you can go straight to the radio with just a coax and no coil on 20 meters and retract the whip some for bands above that.

MFJ sells it for about $60 US.

I swapped the stock whip for a 6ft one which made a massive difference for sacrificing 6m and I've one which is somewhere around 10ft long which is in a box waiting to be tested. 5" of coil is a massive difference even over my 6ft whip. Your signal on 80m will be like using an amp compared to mine with 100W.

I've seen the MFJ mentioned on UK forums so it must be available here so I'll have a look out. The 10ft one I have is a 2 piece one and very flexible so only of use when static mobile anyway.

 

[charles931]

It is pretty much all about the whip length when it comes to performance. I had a Sirio 3000 which has a whip length roughly similar to the Wilson 5000. When I replaced it with the Sirio 5000 I saw roughly 1.5 S point increase in received signals using the same mount. A S5 signal increased to just below S7.

So now you've given it a test, the next thing to do is get over to Breedlovemounts.com, order one of their SO239 puck mounts and put that sucker in the roof then over to www.k0bg.com, read up the page on bonding and apply that to your vehicle and then you can watch the noise drop and your signal get out even better.

Remember real men drill holes.

Can i use the rg8x the mini to do the bonding or is it not big enough