mikefox whiskey
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Registered: 02-2009
Location: Northern Ireland
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Solarcon Imax 2000 / Ground plane kit.
I bought this antenna about 6 years ago when I decided to return to radio after a while off it, it was bought from Truck King and I think it cost about £70. The price now to buy is £89.
I also purchased the optional ground plane kit shown below which cost about £35 or so. It can be got now for about £39.
The ground plane radials are 6ft in length and made of fibreglass, they come down at 45 degrees from the feed point, initially the bracket that holds the radials to the antenna rusted after a month or so, it's a very cheap and lightweight piece and was not galvanised very well, I had another heavier bracket made from stainless steel, the nuts and washers which are supplied to mount the radials to the bracket rusted also, the ground plane radials themselves however are made very well and are quite heavy and did stand up to a lot of abuse when erecting the antenna. The radials are a doddle to mount to the antenna though the nuts are oddball USA sizes.
The Imax 2000 shown above (crap image I know! why do sellers insist on using crap images to sell antennas?) it looks like a toothpick.
Anyway the Imax itself is 24ft - 8 meters tall, this is a good height, not to small like a 1/2 wave Antron 99 and not to long like the Avanti sigma 4, the 24ft height is described as a well kept secret of 11m antennas, it is 0.64 of a wavelength long or a nearly two thirds of a wavelength antenna, I was surprised to learn that it is not a 5/8th wave antenna like most assume.
The antenna itself is simple to put together and comes in three 8ft sections that simply screw together, no hose pipe clips needed here! there was lock ring washers originally in between the joints in the antenna, again these parts rusted solid after a short while so I removed them altogether only to find that the top section after a few months had come loose with the movement in wind, and it does move in the wind in fact it whips about more than a fishing rod! scary! when the wind dies down though you can be assured the antenna will still be perfectly straight, to stop the sections coming loose put some electrical tape around the joints.
The antenna is pretty well made apart from the nuts and bolts and the U clips etc.
It does rattle a bit on the ground as the wire goes through the middle of the bottom two sections.
Performance is very good so far for a vertical, I have tried it with and without the radial kit and as far as I gather the radial kit does have a slight edge over the performance of the antenna used without the kit installed, this is very hard to judge though as 11m propagation is like the sea and always changes.
The antenna can be tuned on all bands with a good tuner, but it starts to come into it's own above 18MHz and blows my doublet out on 10 and 11m compleately.
When the antenna comes from the factory it's SWR of 1:1 is set to the mid block of the CB frequencies, this can be adjusted with two tuning rings at the base of the ariel, the rings are threaded on to the antenna with about 2 inches of threads, to make the antenna nearly resonant on 17m the rings can be moved to the bottom giving an SWR of about 1:8 on that band, to make it resonant on 10m move the rings nearer to the top where an SWR of near 1:1 is achievable, eventually I settled for somewhere in between as I use an tuner anyway.
I would recommend this antenna to anybody, in saying that and to be honest I have never tried any other 11m verticals for performance, it has stood up to the elements well with only a slight yellowing of the fibreglass, this could be prevented if a clear coat of varnish was used to coat the antenna though.
The antenna comes with a user leaflet and a cutting chart if the antenna is to be used for 10m.
Thanks for reading the review.
Last edited by mikefox whiskey, 29/Jun/2009, 7:45 am
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(Forum user name is now SuperNasty)
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7/Jun/2009, 8:40 pm
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26fb010
Accomplished DX-er
Registered: 01-2009
Location: BLACK COUNTRY
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Re: Solarcon Imax 2000 / Ground plane kit.
it is a great vertical (with gp kit added) and ticks the right boxes performance wise.to protect the fibreglass i wound some quality electrical tape up the length of the antenna sections. great dx
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28/Jul/2009, 9:10 pm
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topbuzzuk
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Registered: 11-2007
Location: Wiltshire, UK
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Re: Solarcon Imax 2000 / Ground plane kit.
another good one for protecting the fibreglass is ships /marine varnish 
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26FB118
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29/Jul/2009, 8:26 am
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