Centerfire Antennas?

[MacombMonitor]

Anyone purchase an antenna from Centerfire Antennas?


http://www.centerfireantenna.com/index.html
http://www.centerfireantenna.com/scan.html

Looks like some no nonsense, rugged, and inexpensive antennas. They offer to build custom antennas too.

 

[mgosdin]

I bought one of their 5/8 Wave 150 - 156mhz base antennas for use with my Pro-2051 scanning Railroads ( around 160mhz ).

I didn't do any special tuning to the antenna, just set it up according to the instructions. The fit & finish was very good, not as slick as some I've seen but sturdy enough to inspire confidence in the antenna's durability.

It's mounted on a 22' mast and does a very satisfactory job picking up dispatchers and trains some 50+ miles away as the crow flies. It also does a very competent job on the 400mhz & 800mhz public service frequencies, but it wasn't really designed with those in mind.

Mark Gosdin

 

[Dalan]

Anyone purchase an antenna from Centerfire Antennas?

Yep, I bought one of the discone scanner antennas. Worked just fine for
VHF and air frequencies. Not so well for 800 mhz. I was happier when I put up a Scantenna.


Dave

 

[kingpin]

I bought one of the UHF ones for GMRS use and I wouldn't hit a hog in the A$$ with it. It's not tuneable and the lowest SWR I could get on it was 2.0. Tried both RG-58 & LMR-400 feedlines. Mine had very narrow bandwidth Around 500 KHz. I just mainly keep it around for reception. Paid 16 bucks for it so I guess I couldn't complain too much. I ended up picking up a mobile NMO mount antenna and threw it up on the tower and had much better results. I'm sure some of his stuff is good, just stay away from the GMRS stuff.

 

[MacombMonitor]

I bought one of the UHF ones for GMRS use and I wouldn't hit a hog in the A$$ with it. It's not tuneable and the lowest SWR I could get on it was 2.0. Tried both RG-58 & LMR-400 feedlines. Mine had very narrow bandwidth Around 500 KHz. I just mainly keep it around for reception. Paid 16 bucks for it so I guess I couldn't complain too much. I ended up picking up a mobile NMO mount antenna and threw it up on the tower and had much better results. I'm sure some of his stuff is good, just stay away from the GMRS stuff.

Looks like they're offering a better design than the one you originally purchased.

Link: http://www.centerfireantenna.com/uhf58.html

In fact, they're showing five different designs for GMRS.

 

[kingpin]

Yeah. I like the one at the top of the page. All that was available at the time was this one http://www.centerfireantenna.com/gmrsnotune.html
This is the one I have and it's almost useless to me. Maybe I'll give one of the others a try.