It was at the start of March 2014 when I retired my Antron 99 and indeed the Gainmaster I had used in Germany for a long time also was put in the box and left against the wall in a cupboard. It was time to try a Himalaya, had used it as a Black Pirate from Portable in 1990’s so why not try the renamed antenna and see if it worked?
Cannot use the 5 legs on it due to space restrictions and over hang so it would be just the antenna on a 5ft steel water pipe against the fence, like was with the other antennas. Fitted simple, SWR was great all over 27MHz and with a slight twist of the rings covered from 25.9-27.9 so all was good
Now there are stories like with all antennas about the 100DBi or in this case 9.9DBi I think like Antron 99. No white coats here, or clinical tests. Don’t believe it, so install and use it is the best test of all.
Never used more than 100w on it, either from Grant II or 40w from Lincoln II. BOTH radios got noise, Lincoln was the worst with constant S2-3 on SSB while the Grant II S5-6 FM. Loan an Icom 718 from Markus @Neuner and the noise level was S0 (with added DSP) where against my Antron 99 was S2 and same noises on both radios like on the Himalaya.
Location: Junk, near the airport, close to a shopping centre so always noise. Nature of the beast.
Height above Ground: Antenna is 5.6m long, mast is 5ft and height above sea level to base 110m ASL
In the year there was of course highs and lows. Some activations never heard, some heard well. The actual nature of the beast of course.
Total Worked Countries: 102
Included: Australia, Philippines, India, Reunion Island, Alaska, Christmas Island, Mali, Togo, Kazakhstan, Khirghiz, Mariana Islands, Curacao, Canada, USA and loads of others..
It works.. Now, the paint that covers it is starting to show signs of age, it needed the screw thread tightening and now replaced the coax, mine was junk so got new. Also this helped the noise level etc.
6 year warranty, so maybe the paint etc is covered in this I don’t know. It has good ears, worked easily on FM with 4w Bishket so all fine.
Added a Fire-Up tip and didn’t make much difference.
Start of the 2nd year and working well.
Lets see what the future brings…. But working well, yes indeed. Best vertical to vertical contact 13,320km
**Updated**
To address some issues that I believe did not translate well maybe for those using translators outside EU areas or my brand of serious and also slang words.
(JUNK) The coax was replaced with RG213 and disposed of the RG58 which had its time and was needing to be replaced.
Antenna was up 12 months, storms, winds, hail, ice rain, snow and who knows what in the air. So paint issues am not surprised and obviously it has not stopped the antenna working, it works like Day1 albeit 1 year old