Exactly how does the ground plane kit attach to the A-99 ?
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Ground plane kit -A99
- Thread starter Dirtblaster44
- Start date
niceguy71
Active Member
it's no big secret... just a ring that clamps on the bottom of the antenna and then the four-- 4 foot long ground plane radials screw into the ring.
I have no idea if my Antron 99 works better with the ground plane kit or not...
I bought the ground plane kit with the antenna for an extra $40.... for $40 bucks I wasn't going to risk spending all kinds of time and effort to install my antenna and find out later I needed the ground plane kit and have to redo everything......
today Amazon has it for $229.99.... so it went up $60 bucks in 2 years!
..... back in 2023 when I got my antenna... it was $129 for just the Antenna.. or $169.99 with the ground plane kit from Amazon.
I talk to lots of people that love their Antron 99 ( it's actually Solarcon A-99CK 17' Omni-Directional Fiberglass Base Station Antenna and Ground Plane Kit ) ... but most of the people I talk to on-line or on air... don't seem to have the contacts I get daily.... every time someone comes over my house and see's the big antenna standing up above my house they ask what it is.... I usually turn on my Anytone 5555 N II and turn it to 37 LSB and ask if anyone can hear me.... I always seem to get someone from another country... I have impressed a lot of people.. including myself!
WX2Watch was over two weeks ago and I asked for a come back on 37LSB to see how the conditions are and a guy from the West Indies came back loud and clear.... LOVE THAT A-99 antenna!
my 17 foot antenna is on the top of a 32 or 33 foot pole.... so it's 50 feet to the tip of the antenna... and my house is up on a hill..... I "personally" think the ground plane kits was worth the money.... but again i have never tried it with and without it to actually know.
I have no idea if my Antron 99 works better with the ground plane kit or not...
I bought the ground plane kit with the antenna for an extra $40.... for $40 bucks I wasn't going to risk spending all kinds of time and effort to install my antenna and find out later I needed the ground plane kit and have to redo everything......
today Amazon has it for $229.99.... so it went up $60 bucks in 2 years!
..... back in 2023 when I got my antenna... it was $129 for just the Antenna.. or $169.99 with the ground plane kit from Amazon.
I talk to lots of people that love their Antron 99 ( it's actually Solarcon A-99CK 17' Omni-Directional Fiberglass Base Station Antenna and Ground Plane Kit ) ... but most of the people I talk to on-line or on air... don't seem to have the contacts I get daily.... every time someone comes over my house and see's the big antenna standing up above my house they ask what it is.... I usually turn on my Anytone 5555 N II and turn it to 37 LSB and ask if anyone can hear me.... I always seem to get someone from another country... I have impressed a lot of people.. including myself!
WX2Watch was over two weeks ago and I asked for a come back on 37LSB to see how the conditions are and a guy from the West Indies came back loud and clear.... LOVE THAT A-99 antenna!
my 17 foot antenna is on the top of a 32 or 33 foot pole.... so it's 50 feet to the tip of the antenna... and my house is up on a hill..... I "personally" think the ground plane kits was worth the money.... but again i have never tried it with and without it to actually know.
niceguy71
Active Member
I have had two Antron99's/Solarcon A-99's and never had the groundplane kit. I found the performance to be just fine. However, I do not know what I may have left on the table performance-wise by not using the groundplane.
If I were doing it all over again, I would get the kit.
If I were doing it all over again, I would get the kit.
niceguy71
Active Member
it's funny I get more people getting really angry saying the ground plane kit is a total waste and a rip off!!!!!... but they always say they never even tried the ground plane kit???? so how do they really know?
I think they judge it on how good it works.. even without the ground plane kit.....
but of all the base stations in my area... I'm the only one with the ground plane kit... and all the other guys without the ground plane kits hear me talking to other countries all the time.... after I thank them for the come back the other guys in my town with the same radio ( Anytone 5555 N II and Antron-99 without ground plane kit try to make the same contact.. but hardly ever do....... but I have no idea how tall they have their antennas or how high their elevation in their part of town is.
again... for under a $100 bucks.. why not try it... it certainly can't hurt.
Exactly right. You can't say it's a waste of money without trying it. Some people get angry over the strangest things. LOL
My first base antenna was a Firestik indoor antenna with a 5-foot whip and four radials. (folks did not want an antenna on the house). I found some metal rods laying around and placed them in between the stock radials. You know what - the more radials I added, the better my receive and transmit was.
When we tried the kits in the 90s, both myself and others did notice "some difference". When the iMax came out it did even better than the 99 did with the kit. I've run many thru out the years and some of the better ones were the Astro plane and Star duster. Just can't get the real ones any more these days.
A friend of mine just took his a99 down and totally cleaned up and redid the 40 year old Astro plane and there's quite a difference at least locally here at 18 ish miles between he and I. He didn't have the ground plane kit on the 99 tho, kinda wish he would have.
A friend of mine just took his a99 down and totally cleaned up and redid the 40 year old Astro plane and there's quite a difference at least locally here at 18 ish miles between he and I. He didn't have the ground plane kit on the 99 tho, kinda wish he would have.
Lots of people have opinions on things they have never tried and know absolutely nothing about. Just consider the source, and move along.
niceguy71
Active Member
I'd never heard of one of those indoor CB antenna's before last year...... we had a new guy here last year that bought one and had nothing but trouble... high SWR and it just didn't work..... I told him to take it outside and I guess it worked a little... I read and watched video's on it.... as we all know... all these indoor base station antennas for HOA's and apartments just don't work.....
I found this video on YouTube.....this guy had the indoor antenna on a 2nd floor OUTSIDE balcony, and he was able to get three miles.... THREE WHOLE MILES... what a joke.... and that was the BEST video of it working!
I just did an antenna test last week and I talked to WX2Watch for 16 miles on AM with him only using 10 watts... then we were able to talk for 38 miles on LSB on his way home, him on a Stryker SR-A10 and my Antron 99 base antenna... video to come shortly.....
how did your indoor antenna work kc2asb?
nd5y
Member
A99 is probably a waste of money.
The ground plane kit isn't necessary for the A-99 to be a good performer. Since the Antron is a half-wave, the GP isn't required, and it doesn't improve performance per se. it does lower the takeoff angle a fair amount, making it better on groundwave and longer hops.
prcguy
Member
The A99 should work slightly better with the ground plane kit but you may not notice it in actual use. Doing a before and after measurement with test equipment should show a slight improvement. The A99 and similar antennas suffer from not being decoupled very well from the feedline making the feedline and mast hot with RF and causing different lengths of coax or mast to react a little different. The ground plane kit should help decouple the antenna from the coax/mast and improve things.
100% agree. Worst base antenna i ever owned. Fine for DX, but horribly deaf for local comms past 25+ miles. Just the other night i managed 91 miles on 38LSB to a mobile station in Crandon, WI with my Sirio GPS-27 1/2 wave with no ground pane kit. Want proof? I found his fbook post. I’m the Green Bay/Bellevue station. It’s attached below.
That is the same exact antenna I had. (well, still have it, though it does not get used)
It worked surprisignly well. This was over 30 years ago, but going from memory, I probably got 5 miles or so base to base on AM. I do remember working a station on 37 LSB that was probably 15-20 miles away. That station had great elevation, though.
I had the antenna in the attic (3rd story) which certainly helped. IIRC, the SWR was good, 1.7 or less across the regular 40 channels.
When I finally wore the folks down on an outside antenna, the locals were shocked it was me when I first started using the Antron 99.
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