bought a used galaxy 99 on a whim knowing it needed work

I've got Wilson antennas. But I like the Francis 5x5 and have one of those too. I can't tell any difference between it and the Wilson. Anybody know what the advertised gain on each antenna is?

 

I found it somewhere but did not book mark it.

This is an interesting read though,

http://www.copper.com/articles/big_coil_antennas_exposed.php

 

Remember, mobile antenna "gain" figures are in dBah; decibels of advertising hype.

Anything that's not at least 102" long has LOSS.

 

DBi gain is your receive gain. The 102" whip is a good one but I personally have had the best results with Wilson products. I've ran both the 102" whip and the Wilson 5000. 5000 beats it.

 

I don't pay much attention to gain on mobile antennas. Haven't even thought about it much. But I know what works for me and the "girls I go with"!

 

Good read, thanks!

 

Antenna Gain

The ability of the antenna to shape the signal and focus it in a particular direction is called "antenna gain" and is expressed in terms of how much stronger the signal in the desired direction is, compared to the worst possible antenna, which distributes the signal evenly in all directions (an "isotropic radiator"). To express the relationship to the isotropic reference, this is abbreviated dBi. The typical omni-directional "stick" antenna is rated at 6-8 dBi, indicating that by redirecting the signal that would have gone straight up or down to the horizontal level, 4 times as much signal is available horizontally. A parabolic reflector design can easily achieve 24 dBi.

The antenna gain factor applies to the received signal as well as to the transmitted signal. By focusing the incoming signal from a particular direction onto the radiating element, the antenna also shields the receiver from interference from noise sources outside of the amplified angle.

http://www.afar.net/tutorials/antennas/

 

Agreed; what they found is consistent to what I have experienced. Mobile antennas of a similar length perform similarly.

I'm glad that they pointed out the problem with open coils and the weather...

 

Yea, I switched from a Wilson 5000 to a Monkey made MM-9 medium.
That thing is so heavy at over 4 lbs anything over 55 mph the whole door shakes.(International mirrors suck)

The ONLY difference i can tell with the big open coil is a slight receive improvement.(That may be my imagination)
Not worth shaking my truck apart!
My Wilson is going back on this weekend.

I can talk just fine with the Wilson. I was in South Florida and was talking to New England on the Wilson a few weeks ago.
This was barefoot with the Galaxy DX94HP.

Anyone want to buy a used one week MM-9 ?.....lol!
I feel it was a wasted 90 some bucks.......

I gave my buddy the Wilson 5k......Had to buy a new one.
So that experiment cost me about 175 bucks...and i have to set the SWR again!

 

"Worst possible"? Depends on how you define "worst". A dummy load (which radiates nothing) could be considered "worst". The isotropic antenna, which doesn't actually exist, is 100% efficient.

An antenna with high resistive losses can transmit a signal that is worse than an isotropic antenna (have negative gain).