Transmission1

1.8 at 40w isn't too shabby, I'm on that at 4W. Mind, I don't suppose you want nearly 10W reflected back at the rig.

Well the coax and mount replacement turned up for the mag mount so I multimeter tested it, gave the mag base a good clean, wiped the Springer down and cleaned the thread then whacked it all together on the car. SWR is flat at UK 40, 1.25 at UK1 and just under 2 at EU1. I'd pulled the whip out a bit to give it more EU.

I suspect the whip has been cut at some point for UK40 but it does well over most of the two bands and it's a freebie. All I have to do is test it with a real live station.

I heard my nearest breakers while SWR testing so I drove to a spot I usually test gear at, where they'd hear me. They were at 2.5, 4.5 and 5 miles. 2.5 mile said I was about the same, 4.5 mile said I was better than usual and 5 mile couldn't hear me but he never does from there - he always has s5-7 of QRM.

Next time I'll take the Springer, the PNI and the Sirio and have a bit of a shootout.

I also bought the car kit for the Thunderpole TX. I thought running the antenna through it might degrade the signal but 2.5 mile told me that my signal went from S6 to S7 when I swapped the antenna from the BNC on top to the car kit plug.

Is it possible you 4 watts out with the car adaptor.
Some sets only put out 2 watts on battery power

Differing power levels are certainly possible but I had the car kit hooked up to the cig lighter socket when I swapped the antenna from car kit to BNC port, so power wasn't an issue.

Well i did the shootout. Long story short, 4 miles across the city I was S7 with Springer and PNI ML145, audio a bit louder on the PNI. I was S6-7 and quieter audio with the Sirio. At a second, more difficult spot, S6 and the same audio results.

NanoVNA testing makes me suspect a grounding issue - the Sirio's resistance was 70 ohms as opposed to the PNI resistance of close to 50 ohms. So, possibly more magnet or the boot lip mount as suggested above.

The PNI came out of the NanoVNA testing well with a SWR <1.2 at a sweet spot of 27.5mhz. Weirdly, the Springer sweet spot was 28.1mhz but the previous owner swore he hadn't cut it. Still, it is excellent across the UK 40 and reasonable for most of the EU 40.

How's the PNI ML180 doing, by the way?

scanhermit wrote: 12 Jun 2026, 23:05 How's the PNI ML180 doing, by the way?

Tried out the pni today with a signal of 4 in the hash on 4watts to signal 6 on 40watts which made a big difference and better with the nrc on 3

Ooh how far did you get out?

13 miles to delboy