Quote:
Originally Posted by 69harley
We have this antenna scheduled to go into the test chamber next week. I think the 44 db gain claim is way off and is borderline silly to claim in this forum.
We built one of these, and were able to close the loop on a good SC 25K bird. We did some preliminary testing using a PSC-5D and a 117F in manpack mode, with and external 25 watt amplifier (RAMP-25) and an external 100 watt amplifier (TSE-AM-SAT-100). In all three modes we did side by side testing with the experimental antenna, an AV-2055 without extenders and an AV-2011.
The 117F and PSC-5D were able to max all loopback tests with the 2011, regardless of amplifiers used or not used. With the 2055, loopback test were consistently in the 80 percent range. The experimental antenna averaged 65 percent.
The 20011 has 15 db of gain, the 2055 without extenders is 5 db, we guess the experimental to be around 4 db of gain.
This antenna works, but nowhere near the 44 db claimed.
Like I said, next week it will go into the RF test chamber, the results will be posted here.
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Like Glebo said before they are taking reading of of their radios. They do not have access to the equipment you must have and you have to give them credit for trying to reduce the load and make a item that will work in their environment. Please do not stifle their creativeness with High Tech Lab critiques. I work with a lot of Electronics Engineers that are smarter than all of us. They can build a lot of stuff in a Lab but it does not make the grade out side. We all know that the db readings are not right but this antenna does work. I have built 2 (soldered/Connecters) and have used them in SA in the last week. Not as good as the factory ones but it is not intended to totally replace them. You can put it in your pouch and get up and running, if your factory one breaks/blown up/etc you now know how to make a field expedient one.
I applaud Electron for thinking outside the box and it looks like 18E's are and have been using them with success. Looking forward to the bench test next week. Never hurts to have an extra antenna. Remenber 1 is none, 2 is 1.