Hola, TowerTalkians --
A couple of weeks ago I posted a message in response to an inquiry about
Mosley antennas. I stated that they suffered from PDS - performance deficit
syndrome. It was posted to a couple of other reflectors besides TowerTalk so
lots of people had a chance to read it and get upset.
I was expecting some excited responses from Mosley owners defending their
antennas. Guess what? I didn't get a single one!
I wanted to make some additional comments about this topic.
First, my comments were basically aimed at the PRO series of antennas.
The classic TA-33 and some of the other smaller antennas have been used by
hams for years and they have done an admirable job for what they are - a
small, trapped triband yagi antenna.
I have a theory about why PRO Mosley owners think their antennas work FB.
First, they usually don't have anything to compare it to. No reference dipole
or other yagi so the fact that they are able to work DX, their buddies, etc.
must mean that it's working FB.
The second part of my theory is the "I paid a lot of money for it
therefore it must work" supposition. They are heavy, expensive antennas and
by implication they MUST be worth it.
I have found that many buyers of the big Mosley antennas had a TA-33 or
similar Mosley years ago. It worked great and was reliable (robustly built)
so therefore a bigger Mosley must work even better. This hasn't been borne
out by my experience with them. While much of my information has been
anecdotal with some of it being supplied by fellow TowerTalkians, N0AX and
myself have recently field tested a PRO-77 that didn't cause us to change our
minds about its relative performance.
The two high performance triband antennas remain the TH7 and KT34XA. New
introductions by Bencher (Skyhawk), Cushcraft (X-9) and Force 12 (C-3XL)
along with the Hy-Gain TH11 may prove to meet or exceed the performance of
these 2 benchmark antennas. Time will tell.
73, Steve K7LXC
--
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