I was out over the weekend comparing the Wonder Wand Antenna with the Miracle Whip Antenna
More to come
wwmw.MOV - YouTube
More to come
wwmw.MOV - YouTube
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Wonder Wand Miracle Whip QRP Antenna Comparison
- Thread starter Happy_Hamer
- Start date
Last weekend, a friend and I took our 817's to a state park to compare the
Wonder Wand (WW) Widebander QRP antenna WONDER ANTENNAS Wonder Wand - Wide Bander
and The Miracle Whip (MW) QRP Antenna Miracle Antenna side by side.
They both look similar and both use the same basic design.
The WW has a BNC Connector on the antenna itself. This makes it much more convenient to stow away during a backpack. And the antenna can be directly connected to the front of the 817 with the BNC connector.
The MW offers this option (Ducker TL), although the one used over the weekend did not have that.
The WW has two tuning controls to achieve your best match for RX or TX. During RX you simply adjust the bottom control until you "hear" the loudest RX. Now for TX, while calling CQ you can use the top control to fine tune to the lowest SWR match while watching the internal SWR meter on the radio.
The MW has only one control for matching, and quite frankly, I found it much easier and quicker to find a match and get on the air with the MW.
Both antennas were getting the exact same reports. We would find a station, both of us set the RX to the loudest point, one would shut off the radio and the other would make a call then switch to the other person making the call.
We explained that we were testing two antennas and if we could get an S meter signal reading from the same person. We actually created a small pile up on 20 meter because everyone wanted to offer their reports from different parts of the country.
We had over 100 contacts each throughout the weekend and always got the same signal reports with the two different antennas. We made contacts on 60 meter, 40 meter, 20 meter, 17 meter, 15 meter, 12 meter, 10 meter and 2 meter local repeaters. We were able to tune 6 meter, no-one was on band at the time though.
Although, our very first contact, my radio was given a 1x3 while the other guy was 5x5. :blushing: (See video) Miracle Whip - Wonder Wand side by side comparison - YouTube
I then looked at my settings and had my radio set at low power, (1-2 watts) and his was on high power (4-5 watts) and he was hooked to an external 12 volt battery. We then set both radios to high power and only used the internal batteries of the 817s the rest of the day. We did take a break for lunch and put both radios on charge using solar panels.
After lunch I decided to try using a dipole antenna. The WW includes A BNC to twin banana clip adaptor.
You simply connect a dipole to the banana clips and use the WW as a manual antenna tuner. It was very easy to use and the signal reports were understandably slightly higher then the reports of the MW which was still only using the telescoping antenna.
So the bottom line, in my opinion, If you live in North America, the Miracle Whip Antenna is a good choice because it is easily available at many amateur radio stores. If you live in the UK region, then the Wonder Wand would be a good choice because of the ease of its availability there.
Like I stated before, I found it easier to tune the Miracle Whip, you say tomato I say tomato,,,,,,
Both worked equally as well as the other. What more could you ask for?
Wonder Wand (WW) Widebander QRP antenna WONDER ANTENNAS Wonder Wand - Wide Bander
and The Miracle Whip (MW) QRP Antenna Miracle Antenna side by side.
They both look similar and both use the same basic design.
The WW has a BNC Connector on the antenna itself. This makes it much more convenient to stow away during a backpack. And the antenna can be directly connected to the front of the 817 with the BNC connector.
The MW offers this option (Ducker TL), although the one used over the weekend did not have that.
The WW has two tuning controls to achieve your best match for RX or TX. During RX you simply adjust the bottom control until you "hear" the loudest RX. Now for TX, while calling CQ you can use the top control to fine tune to the lowest SWR match while watching the internal SWR meter on the radio.
The MW has only one control for matching, and quite frankly, I found it much easier and quicker to find a match and get on the air with the MW.
Both antennas were getting the exact same reports. We would find a station, both of us set the RX to the loudest point, one would shut off the radio and the other would make a call then switch to the other person making the call.
We explained that we were testing two antennas and if we could get an S meter signal reading from the same person. We actually created a small pile up on 20 meter because everyone wanted to offer their reports from different parts of the country.
We had over 100 contacts each throughout the weekend and always got the same signal reports with the two different antennas. We made contacts on 60 meter, 40 meter, 20 meter, 17 meter, 15 meter, 12 meter, 10 meter and 2 meter local repeaters. We were able to tune 6 meter, no-one was on band at the time though.
Although, our very first contact, my radio was given a 1x3 while the other guy was 5x5. :blushing: (See video) Miracle Whip - Wonder Wand side by side comparison - YouTube
I then looked at my settings and had my radio set at low power, (1-2 watts) and his was on high power (4-5 watts) and he was hooked to an external 12 volt battery. We then set both radios to high power and only used the internal batteries of the 817s the rest of the day. We did take a break for lunch and put both radios on charge using solar panels.
After lunch I decided to try using a dipole antenna. The WW includes A BNC to twin banana clip adaptor.
You simply connect a dipole to the banana clips and use the WW as a manual antenna tuner. It was very easy to use and the signal reports were understandably slightly higher then the reports of the MW which was still only using the telescoping antenna.
So the bottom line, in my opinion, If you live in North America, the Miracle Whip Antenna is a good choice because it is easily available at many amateur radio stores. If you live in the UK region, then the Wonder Wand would be a good choice because of the ease of its availability there.
Like I stated before, I found it easier to tune the Miracle Whip, you say tomato I say tomato,,,,,,
Both worked equally as well as the other. What more could you ask for?
An interesting comparison, I'm assuming the antennas are the same length, only the method of tuning differs, were you using counterpoise wires?