Thread: BigIR III
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Old 01-21-2008, 06:42 PM   #3
N7OQ
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Yuba City, Ca
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I too have been looking at the BigIR, my vertical (14AVQ) I have right now is getting old and the last storm that packed 70 mph winds did a number on it so I will be replacing it.

I have had the 14AVQ sense 1978 and it has been to a lot of places including Germany and installed both roof and ground. It works 10 times better on the roof with 2 radials for each band. When I ground mount it without radials I get great SWR's but not very good signal reports. When I had it mounted in the yard of my last house I tried it with only a 8 foot ground rod and it just didn't get out very well. Sense I did not have a very big back yard I ran radials where I could, some around things and some only 3 or 4 feet but I put as many in the ground as I could and it was like night and day. You can tell when you have good ground plane because your band width gets smaller sense the Q of the antenna get better.

MFJ sells a plate that mounts under the antenna and acts like a big capacitor and couples the antenna to ground it might help.
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