scanhermit
New member
I bought this antenna plus the mag mount off Amazon for just over £30.
www.mypni.co.uk
It's a clone of the famous Sirio ML145. The bandwidth of the PNI version is slightly less than the Sirio (900khz @swr 2.0 Vs 1100khz) and there may be other corners cut but for the price I thought it would make a good enough run-around. I didn't want to go up to an SWR of 2 at the edges so I cut it for UK FM, for which I had to remove 70mm. It sat down at 1.2 on channel 20 and 1.4 on Ch1 and 40.
At "street level" I've had up to 3.5 miles inside an urban area. I was in a retail park, which was fairly open. From a 50 ft hill on the edge of the city I reached 7 miles across it at S4 R3. My contacts had between S3 to S7 noise levels so my readability would likely have been better in a rural setting.
8 miles across country from one station near the edge of the same city I was R3.
From a nearly 800ft hill I managed S7 R5 at 12 miles and S5 R4 & S6 R5 at 15 miles, into the city. I was also readable at 6 miles across it from the ring road.
I've driven at up to 65mph with the antenna on the roof and it has held steady. The mag mount might not bear a much longer antenna such as a Sirio Hi-Power 4000, except as static mobile though.
The radio used is a Thunderpole TX handheld so power is 4 watts at best. I would say that the antenna is indeed a good run-around. It won't break any DX records - buy a decent static mobile antenna for that - but I do think it is a good compromise between the really short antennas and 2m long monsters for general out and about use.
Antenna CB PNI ML145 length 145 cm and magnet included PNI 145 / PL
Antenna CB PNI ML145 length 145 cm and magnet included PNI 145 / PL
www.mypni.co.uk
It's a clone of the famous Sirio ML145. The bandwidth of the PNI version is slightly less than the Sirio (900khz @swr 2.0 Vs 1100khz) and there may be other corners cut but for the price I thought it would make a good enough run-around. I didn't want to go up to an SWR of 2 at the edges so I cut it for UK FM, for which I had to remove 70mm. It sat down at 1.2 on channel 20 and 1.4 on Ch1 and 40.
At "street level" I've had up to 3.5 miles inside an urban area. I was in a retail park, which was fairly open. From a 50 ft hill on the edge of the city I reached 7 miles across it at S4 R3. My contacts had between S3 to S7 noise levels so my readability would likely have been better in a rural setting.
8 miles across country from one station near the edge of the same city I was R3.
From a nearly 800ft hill I managed S7 R5 at 12 miles and S5 R4 & S6 R5 at 15 miles, into the city. I was also readable at 6 miles across it from the ring road.
I've driven at up to 65mph with the antenna on the roof and it has held steady. The mag mount might not bear a much longer antenna such as a Sirio Hi-Power 4000, except as static mobile though.
The radio used is a Thunderpole TX handheld so power is 4 watts at best. I would say that the antenna is indeed a good run-around. It won't break any DX records - buy a decent static mobile antenna for that - but I do think it is a good compromise between the really short antennas and 2m long monsters for general out and about use.