I’ve spent many years using a President Himalaya WB (Wide Band) from the early days. I’ve also bought a used painted grey spares / repair antenna which worked brilliantly and recently I’ve bought a second hand one again in the area that it didn’t work! I’ve come to the conclusion it’s installation reasons. Some are using aluminum masts and with this antenna isn’t grounded I think? My antennas sit on a 3ft steel water pipe and works lovely. And now what I’ve changed!!
We’ve seen Victor (233MU106) he’s installed Black Pirate Ground-Planes And seems to be working well.
I’ve replaced the top section with a Firestik FS-99 (Fire Up) and all the bandwidth remains the same plus it seems really better on the receive. Also I’ve the Sigma Eurocomm version of the top section and will be testing this in the next two months.
Initial Contacts:
England
Scotland
France
With reports from 5/5 till 5/9 +20db… Worked with McKinley or Lincoln II + and standard electret mike that comes with the radio.
More to come….
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I used an A99(similar design) back in 2003/4 and had it mounted on a short(3ft) piece of gas pipe that had a thick yellow plastic covering, mounted around gutter height on a two story house SWR was flat across 4Mhz 26-30 out of the box.
Other operators in the area running similar set up thought is was running more power haha as i could talk to people they couldnt even hear. so yes these antennas do not need to be mounted on metal poles.