$164,000 Question

This ought to be a good one.

 

Base antenna?

how much money and time do you have?

people may laugh at this but I have several older ones and the best is still being used

1 - hygain penetrator 500, vintage 1978
2 - Starduster, circa Carter era
3 - big stick refurbish

I have maybe 7 newer ones like a couple Sirios and macos in the boxes in storage that I’ve acquired.

I have another older antenna that Sirio used as their model for one of theirs, forgot the middle number of it, I had it up for several years before the hygain went up, it worked well.

the thing is the first two can be made to preform as new by cleaning it and resealing the base. my number one has been used with 3000 watts through it at one time, it sits on a 30 foot tower. On reason why I have 30 mile contacts daily.

the third one is a bit quiet and with all fiberglass antennas the coating degrades and has to be restored, time consuming thing.

I guess it really does not matter, other than don’t by Chinese or Eastern European crap, it seems the important thing is this fact … buy quality coax, contain the coax in a pvc pipe to keep it dry where it is exposed to the weather.

 

In today's market, I still recommend the Hy-Gain super penetrator base antenna.

https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/hgn-spt-500

My favorite years ago was the Antenna Specialist super scanner. I really liked that antenna. It's a shame Maco or some other manufacturer doesn't build it again.

 

The new ones are not the same as the original, the matching unit is different and the gain isn’t as much, but it still better than a coat hanger tied to coax.

 

That's a bummer. Although that doesn't surprise me since Hy-gain was bought by MFJ.