Silver Rod

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Had one for a while in the '80s. Good value, good bandwidth, easy to SWR end fed vertical half wave. Did me good. Even still got skip contacts when it came indoors and was led flat in my loft.

Construction might be cheaper/weaker these days, I am sure others on here can comment on that. I see a lot of people prefer the A99s for strength, but there's quite a difference in price.

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Ah, there's 1/2 and 5/8 wave versions. The 5/8 will be have a tad more gain. I had the 1/2 wave.

The Sirio GPE 5/8 amd GPS 1/2 are good well built Silver rods, and they are not much more expensive than the Generic Bacofoil Venom, Sigma , Scorpion variants.

I would take a 5/8 GPE over a A99 any day of the week, better performance and less noise on RX.

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Mudslinger wrote:

The Sirio GPE 5/8 amd GPS 1/2 are good well built Silver rods, and they are not much more expensive than the Generic Bacofoil Venom, Sigma , Scorpion variants.

I would take a 5/8 GPE over a A99 any day of the week, better performance and less noise on RX.

Been using the Sirio GPE 5/8 wave for the last 6 months and what a great antenna for price and the performance is fantastic.
Get it up nice and high and your soon be DX’ing all over the world and also stands up well to strong winds and hasn’t bent,The only problem I get is a magpie sits on the anti static cage on the tuning tip and bends it over slightly,Luckily their £7 from Knights for a replacement if you don’t fancy bending it back straight yourself..lol
Cheers Tom.
26 CT 4029

Wireless wrote:

Mudslinger wrote:

The Sirio GPE 5/8 amd GPS 1/2 are good well built Silver rods, and they are not much more expensive than the Generic Bacofoil Venom, Sigma , Scorpion variants.

I would take a 5/8 GPE over a A99 any day of the week, better performance and less noise on RX.

Its the Sigma Venom 5/8 High Gain I think I've actually bought.

I've no idea how tall it is, but the Diamond V2000 is 2.5 metres, so I expect the Sigma is taller.

The one which I had was about 19 feet when SWR'd in. I sent it back because the quality of it was terrible. Thin metal, rough edges where joins were etc.

It would probably be good for portable DX though as they are very light and easy to carry.I certainly wouldn't trust it in too much wind though.

The Sirio is Much Much better.


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124992656524?epid=2285161281&hash=item1d1a24948c:g:njYAAOSwECFhh9w~

£45 with the code MORESAVINGS

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Yeah the Sirio is much better and the only extra things I did were for any nut or screw I added Loctite,and wrapped self amalgamating tape over ever antenna joint and around the plastic sleeve that pulls down to protect the copper coil,Also around the coax connection.Touch wood everything seems fine with a SWR if 1:1 apart from that bastard magpie..lol
Well impressed with the £50 it cost me.
Cheers Tom.
26 CT 4029

Chickenfoot@1987 wrote:

Yeah the Sirio is much better and the only extra things I did were for any nut or screw I added Loctite,and wrapped self amalgamating tape over ever antenna joint and around the plastic sleeve that pulls down to protect the copper coil,Also around the coax connection.Touch wood everything seems fine with a SWR if 1:1 apart from that bastard magpie..lol
Well impressed with the £50 it cost me.
Cheers Tom.
26 CT 4029

Have you thought about putting some cable ties on the top cage with the loose ends pointing skywards? That should keep the magpie off.

My Sirio is down right now, but it was up for 4 years and looks almost as good as it did the day it went up. Apart from a small amount of surface rust on the bottom plate which holds the radials.

I also taped over the joins, but I used decent quality PVC tape.

For the money you cannot beat the Sirio, it easily outperforms the A99 which I had previously.

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I've got a halfwave silver rod on my tower block roof (18 floors up) here in London. she works just fine. I get out all over the place straight out the back of my radios (cobra 148 GTL DX MK 1 with a 575 m6 teardrop mic. I also use an alinco DX 10. I do have a linear too but I hardly ever use it unless DXing on sidebands. I was gonna get a more expensive antenna than my £35 silver rod but the Knights guy said it ain't worth paying £100 more to possibly get an extra S point. He said at that height (tower block roof) the s rod would be fine.  He was right. 1.1 swr

Keats. wrote:

I've got a halfwave silver rod on my tower block roof (18 floors up) here in London

Wow, just, wow