    
Wildchild
Junior Member
Username: Wildchild
Post Number: 49
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 2:47 pm: | 
|
I have tried the B&W apartment its just like the MFJ one and I had some luck with it. It can be tuned to the 11 meter CB band with a good SWR. I did have some issues with mine.
1. Its a bit hard to tune for 11 meters.
2. It has to be away from metal structures.
3. When shorten or lengthen the counterpiose wire I had to do it 1/4 inch at a time for 11 meters.
4. The soldering on the counterpoise from the factory is not the best.
5. The counterpoise wire breaks after a few times of use ( I put heaver wire connectors on mine and the breaking problem almost went away).
6. If your radio is in the back of your apartment you have to run a 50 foot length of coax to the antenna. (Mine was supplied with a 10 foot length of RG-58 the 50 foot length does tend to make it a bit hard to tune my radios are in the back room of my apartment).
Mine will only handle 300 watts PEP
If you live on the second of higher floor of your building you can attach it to the balcony and it will work better. (I live in a building with no higher floors)
Now for the upside on mine.
I did talk a bit of skip with it (short hop skip on both 11 and 10 meter this was two weeks ago)
Mine did tune down to a 1.3 to a 1.5 on 2 meters.(i could not get it to tune on 6 meters
A ham friend used it and got some excellent results on 40 meter and 20 meter (Im only a tech now)
All in all mine performed fine but my major issue was getting it tuned for 11 meters.
Hope this helps. |
