both antennas arrived, both scheduled for YouTube upload by Monday

I now have both antennas that I ordered, however the Thunderpole Boomerang antenna was to be delivered by Parcelforce (or Parcelfarce as I call them because they are incredibly useless) and they failed to deliver it to a neighbour as instructed, ignored the fact I rescheduled and left it at Catterick Garrison Post Office meaning after filming the video for the Sirio Hi-Power 4000 (and subjecting it to 70MPH due to a trip to nearby Darlington to do a bank run) I had to call at the Post Office to collect it, with that done editing work was finished for the Sirio antenna and the Boomerang unboxing video was filmed.

A big surprise with the Sirio was that I did not need to adjust it, SWR under 1.5:1 across all 80 channels, for the most part, the top end of 27/81 was about 1.4 which is acceptable, I was to compare between my K-Po and Zetagi SWR meters however this did not happen because another vehicle parked next to my car before I could do that, and the driver did not seem happy that I was even up there, probably because I don't own a dog, unfortunately public land means I have a right to go up there, it is ideal for radio given height and forms part of my mobile standardised test route, now I have the antenna I will be doing a dry run on video before actually doing anything on the air to show you the route from the car.

The only part to do from the perspective of the new antennas is the on-air test of the Boomerang, once it is up and tuned, given the fine adjustments that may be needed I won't bore you and give a final SWR reading as per the K-Po meter, the Zetagi meter, and the one built in to the President Grant II.

I will be working from 4pm tonight and as ever will be monitoring UK 19, which is usually full of the burner brigade running illegal power to speak to their pals which the 4 watts can do fine for them but they generally don't have a good understanding of this fact, that and they have the squelch turned all the way up which is a bit ridiculous really, maybe even with them I may notice a difference on this antenna on receive, the one thing that will be noticed is the fact I have a bigger antenna on the car.

73 de M0WNU/26CT730

A couple of antennas on their way

I have placed an order for two antennas, a Sirio Hi-power 4000 for the car and a Thunderpole Boomerang for the home QTH, these antennas should, hopefully, work to set my base line for CB testing in a mobile environment, the base line is to be set as the Thunderpole T3000, the mobile antenna being as long as realistically possible, the boomerang coming in close to the 'spider antenna' for size.

Of course these antennas get a video on YouTube, the first one will be the Sirio Hi-power 4000 as that is the most straight forward to install, installation will be done at my new radio test ground above Richmond at the Hurgill Road end of the old racecourse.

The other reason I chose the Sirio Hi-Power 4000 is due to the similarity between it and the antenna loaned to me (see a previous video on my YouTube channel) which I since had to return as the amateur that loaned me it needed the magmount, the Orbitor/Springer antennna on the car was always going to be temporary, and the Hi-Power 4000 will work with 10-meters though I would need to shorten it and I was never comfortable doing this with a loaned antenna so it is my intent to buy a second Hi-Power 4000 to be tuned to 10-meters so I just swap the antennas over depending on if I choose to use 10-meters or 11-meters.

For CB, tuning will be done on my Thunderpole T-3000 with the car engine running to ensure the radio is running at it's maximum power output, SWR will be checked across the entire 80 channels using 2 SWR meters, my K-Po meter and my Zetagi meter, these meters will both be used with the boomerang when it goes up and tuning will be done on the Grant II, once this is done my base line can be set, all my radios will go through it, even my handhelds with car kits will be subject to this to see how they perform once a suitable speaker-mic can be obtained that won't jam them on transmit.

I will set up a scoring system for the standardised tests, also with a temporary base antenna I'll be able to retest the handhelds in the local area for a follow up video to "Handheld CBs, are they any good?".

Keep watching this space

73 de M0WNU/26CT730