I've decided that mobile operating would be rather nice, and a good way to pass the occasional half hour whilst waiting for the kids to come out of school.
But which of the plethora mobile antennas do you buy? They range from those sold for about £25 with very good reviews to those sold for well over £100, sometimes with not-so-good reviews.
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| The first impression you'll get of the G-Whip Pro Mobile. It's a good impression. |
Enter, yes, once again, Mr. Geoff Brown, aka G-Whip Antenna Products. This is a man who knows how to make products and serve the customer as though he matters.
I looked-up Geoff's web site and quite liked the look of his G-Whip Pro Mobile antenna. It comes with three coils of your chosen band as part of the package, and can be mounted on a tow bar, tow recovery hitch point, or standard mag mounts. A mag mount on top of the car can be expected to have about 3-4dB better performance than tow bar mounting, also avoiding issues with rear screen heating wires and so on.
For £125, the antenna is not the cheapest, but then you are getting three dedicated antennas in one, so on that score, it's darned good value. And that's without yet taking a look at the quality of the antenna you get.
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| The three coils (you can choose your favourite bands.) Impressions even better... |
So, I placed the order and twiddled my thumbs for a couple of days. I got a test report and SWR curves for each of the coils just before the antenna was delivered. Then, a sturdy cardboard tube enclosing the antenna which was itself encased within a further plastic carry-case, arrived by next-day delivery.
With just a quick screwing-on of coil and then the adjustable tip assembly, the antenna is ready to go. With a few minutes spent getting the antenna to resonance (yes, you even get a spanner for the job!), I was down to about 1:1.2 SWR and ready to fire-up.
A few QSOs were had with easy, predictable European stations with excellent reports. I even had a QSO with a man in south Italy operating /M using the same TS-50S and 50W output as I was, both with 57-8 reports.
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| A fine-looking, well-performing G-Whip Pro Mobile, as seen on my car! |
Stunningly, I heard a strong Indonesian station on 20m, and gave him a call out of curiosity. No, he didn't get my full call, but clearly asked the mobile station to come back again and eventually said sorry, he had an S-3 noise floor, just where my signal was hovering. There is no doubt whatsoever that, whilst this mobile antenna is obviously not always going to compete with home stations, it is going to put in a good show and probably beat most of the other mass-produced Chinese whips out there.
I will be updating this post regularly as I spend more time with the antenna. I only report honestly, so you can judge for yourself whether this is the mobile antenna for you. Certainly, even at this very early stage, I have nothing but praise for the superb build quality and evidently good performance of the G-Whip Pro Mobile. By the way, I am only a customer of G-Whip, and have no other links with the business or its owner.
Out and About with the G-Whip Pro Mobile.
Going mobile is really rewarding! Pull in on a hill, mountainside, or by the sea. You may think it's a bit of a struggle, but with this antenna, you start to wonder if the QTH antenna is as good as you think! What's more, you get more on-air time, so more chances to catch interesting DX.
Here is the best indication of the potential of this antenna. The red lines are direct contacts; the yellow is to KQ2H-R, with green then from the repeater to the station contacted. The QSO with OA6 is quite rare, and shows the usefulness of being able to be on air when otherwise you would lose out. The bias to the west is exclusively down to operating during mid-to-late afternoon in late autumn. What isn't shown on this spherical map is the 54 QSO with VK6MV from outside the kids' school on long path on 15/11/2013!
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| Just a few of the best QSOs over the first month or so... |
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