New Truck antennas

Dan makes a good product. I have one of his .64 ground plane antenna's and it's built like a tank...Just don't get all caught up with Dan's hype on that "Audio Ball" gizmo on top...

For what it's worth, you may want to look at the Predator 10K antenna's...less money, and no hype, just results...

 

I've known Dan for 10-15 years now and consider him a good friend. He lives up in Oregon and has been building antenna's since the 90's...maybe longer than that...His prices are higher than most, and his claim's on what his antenna's will do get allot of negative feedback on the Forums, but I have never seen a post complaining about workmanship.

 

@my1985pete

Jessie James is right, the predator 10k is a great antenna. Mine is about 4’4” tall and does an outstanding job. Those punishers look like good antennas. If I could convince myself to do it, I would like to buy a Black Al Capone antenna.

 

they seem to be very well built indeed good quality

 

Seems way overbuilt.

50000 watt capacity? Really? That's only 49996 watts more than is legal to run. Even on 10 meters Ham band, we can only run 1500 watts, max.

The same performance can be had for under 50 bucks.

Only 2 things really matter with antennas. Having the antenna be as close to 1/4 wavelength, and altitude. Well, we can't make the thing any higher on our trucks without whacking overpasses, so we're limited there. 1/4 wave antenna for CB is approx. 108". That would be why you get the best performance out of a full 108" whip antenna. However, that's not really practical in most cases so antennas use different methods to make the length "simulate" this length. One of them is to coil the antenna in the middle. This gives it the length without the height. Just to give you an idea of how important height is, an airplane flying at 2000 feet using a 5 watt handheld with a rubber duck antenna can easily communicate over 60 miles. How do I know? I did it.

A good ground plane and low SWR are important of course but beyond those two things, height and length matter most. Everything else is marketing gimmics. The only thing "punishing" about those antennas is the price.

 

I know that a lot of antennas are gimmick. However, when talking about hand built antennas, I think ones like the “punisher” and my predator 10k dual coil do work better than a mass produced antenna. I can switch out antennas from a tram back to my predator and people ask me what I did differently because it is louder transmitting. I can pick up stations from much further away with my predator, and it is shorter than the other antennas, same bracket, same radio and coax. Swr’s Also tune lower on the predator 10k even though it’s shorter and could reflect off the truck more easily.
And the fact that I can buy any part to it and replace it and never have to buy another antenna? Well that $75 well spent.

 

And a 108" whip would outperform anything this guy makes, other than if he made a 108" whip. I'm certainly not calling this guys work junk, quite the contrary. He seems to do nice work. It's nice that he puts this much work into this. But it's just an antenna. I'm unclear what he charges for one of these things, but to make money on them, it has to be more than they are worth. The only thing I can see that they might be good for is durability. It looks like they might last a bit longer than some of the more common factory built antennas.

His coils are cute and functional, but no more so than a good quality coiled whip. Being mass produced only means one thing, reasonable cost. We're talking about a radio putting out 4 watts. We don't need a handmade antenna or one that's rated for 10000 times this much power. Just a good antenna with a low SWR.

Antennas don't make your transmissions louder, so either the guy you're asking is ############ you, or you're making this up. I doubt you'd lie about this so they're obviously yanking your chain. If it SEEMS louder to the listener, its because your Tram is sub par. Something is wrong. I promise I can equal this "punisher" antenna guys performance with a well mounted and tuned antenna from Wilson. Road Pro. etc.

If your tram is not properly mounted, tuned and maintained it would give subpar performance to one of these guys hand made antennas. But that doesn't mean anything, really.